“I don't really remember how we heard about a plane crashing into the towers, ...we didn't have text messaging then like we do now. My first period math teacher turned on the television while we were in class. As we were sitting there, watching the T.V., we all first thought that this was a horrible accident, until we saw a second plane go into the second tower. From that moment we went from thinking 'this must be an accident' to 'this was an attack.' We were shocked. We didn’t quite know what to think or how to process it."

"That’s when the bell rang for our next class and we funneled into the hallways. There was all kinds of commotion with people hearing about it and some people having no idea what happened. I went to my senior english class and my teacher was wondering what all the noise was for in the hallway. She thought there was a fight. We told her that she had to turn the T.V. on. She pulled out the T.V. and turned on the news,. Wwe simply sat there in silence as the events unfolded. We saw the first tower collapse and not too long after, the second one fell. We didn’t know what was going on, and we didn’t know what to think. That’s when the principal spoke on the loudspeaker explaining what happened and dismissed us for the day. We didn’t have school for the rest of the week. At the time, my father was living in the Upper West Side of Manhattan. and I remember trying to reach him but nothing was going through to the cell phones in New York City. I didn’t know if he had any meetings downtown. Only later that night my father was able to send my brother, my mother and I an email that he was okay.”