Slater Advocates for Bill Mandating 9/11 Curriculum in New York Schools
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Colleen Spor’s husband Joseph was one of 343 New York City firefighters who perished on Sept. 11, 2001, when the World Trade Center catastrophically collapsed following the terrorist attacks.
Last week, Spor stood with Assemblyman Matt Slater (R-Yorktown) to support his bill that would require all New York schools to include 9/11-related curriculum in their classes.
Appearing with several members of the New York City Firefighters of the Hudson Valley East at the Mahopac Volunteer Fire Department last Friday, they called for passage of the Jospeh Spor 9/11 Curriculum Legislation. Spor, a Somers resident, was also accompanied by her daughter, Caitlin, who held her father’s burned helmet, which was eventually found in the Ground Zero rubble.
“You were all the heroes who responded on that awful day,” Slater told more than 70 firefighters in the room, many of them retired. “Every year we say never forget, but it seems like we continue to take steps further and further away from the memory of people like Joe Spor and from what happened that day.”
Many attending the gathering shared vivid memories of 9/11, recounting their painful experiences.
“I worked in Haz-Mat 1 and we lost 19 people on 9/11,” said Phil McArdle. “Our firehouse struggled tremendously for months after 9/11. Haz-Mat did not go back to a regular schedule until May (2002) and all that time we spent down at the rubble.”
McArdle said he supported Slater’s proposed legislation.
“It’s not only about the event, it’s about the ramifications that happened after the event,” he said. “Think about how much pain and suffering our military went through, how many people became disabled and what was the financial implications of this event?”
According to a Columbia Teachers College 2023 article on 9/11 education trends, U.S. students have been “receiving partial, time-limited and de-contextualized histories and perspectives about a watershed moment in history.”
The article cites a 2017 national school audit by the University of Wisconsin-Madison that showed only 26 states, including New York, have placed 9/11 and the subsequent war on terror in public school curriculums and whose emphasis is on national security with “scant mention of the effects of Islamophobia, restrictions to civil liberties, or the vast human costs of military interventions.”
Slater recalled asking his nine-year-old son Charlie what he learned at school on the most recent Sept. 11 anniversary.
“My son said nothing had been taught that day. That doesn’t sit well with me. That’s unacceptable.”
Slater said his office hadn’t canvassed schools in the 94th Assembly District, which he represents, to see if 9/11 was being taught to students.
One firefighter said his grandson, a third-grader, told him that his teacher taught them about 9/11.
“He said his teacher did talk about it so I guess it’s the individual initiative of the teacher,” the firefighter said.
Rachel Connors, a spokesperson for the state Education Department (SED), noted that education materials of the historic events of September 11 and the effects the attacks had on the world have been provided to schools.
“September 11 appears three times in New York’s K-12 Social Studies Framework, which was adopted in 2014,” Connors explained. “The department establishes standards and makes resource materials available to districts.”
Connors added that New York is not a curriculum-setting state, which means that district develop their own curricula to teach about the Sept. 11 attacks.
Slater contends that SED’s 9/11 Framework are guidelines that can be changed, but if his bill becomes law the curriculum would be codified.
“The law will provide SED with specifics on how 911 has to be taught in our schools,” he said.
Slater’s bill was formally introduced last month and is waiting to be given a number before it is referred to committee. If it were to pass out of committee, the measure would then need approval from the Assembly and state Senate.
In 2023, Congressman Andrew Garbarino, a Long Island Republican, introduced a House resolution stating that all 50 states should include the events of the September 11 terrorist attacks in their primary and secondary schools’ curriculum. Since then, it has remained in the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.
Among those joining Slater and Spor last week were Putnam County Executive Kevin Byrne, Putnam County Legislator Erin Crowley (R-Carmel), Carmel Councilman Robert Kearns and Putnam County Clerk Michael Bartolotti.
Kearns said he and others have worked with the Carmel and Mahopac school districts to introduce 9/11 into their curriculum.
Abby is a local journalist who has reported on breaking news for more than 20 years. She currently covers community issues in The Examiner as a full-time reporter and has written for the paper since its inception in 2007. Read more from Abby’s editor-author bio here. Read Abbys’s archived work here: https://www.theexaminernews.com/author/ab-lub2019/