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'Are we at war?' students wonder

Sept 12, 2001

By Aspen C. Emmett
Journal Staff Writer

School will proceed as usual today in Montezuma-County School District following yesterday’s chaotic acts of terrorism on the East Coast, school officials say, but the tragedies will not pass without mention.

Bill Thompson, superintendent of Re-1 schools, said the schools will attempt to conduct classes as normally as possible with the realization that there is an underlying focus on the current state of the country.

At some of the schools yesterday, students, staff and administration engaged in dialogue about the devastating plane collisions at the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.

Montezuma-Cortez High School students had an opportunity to discuss the unfolding events during the course of the school day yesterday, according to a school secretary.

"For 10 minutes at the beginning of each class, they’re discussing it, and we do have counseling available for students," she said.

After-school activities such as band and football continued at the discretion of staff organizers, as they will again today. "They’re leaving the sports up to the individual coaches," the secretary said.

Cortez Middle School Activities Director Jamie Haukeness said staff and administrators canceled all after-school activities out of respect for the lives lost and took several opportunities to answer questions and update students on the state of the nation.

"The kids for the most part were shocked," Haukeness said. "Some of them thought we were at war, and we talked about that. A lot of them were just curious and asking questions.

"Some social-studies teachers and others would watch the news and then help them (kids) process it. We also had counseling available for those kids who needed it, which was minimal. "

Brad Wayt, principal of Mesa Elementary School, said that although his students are much younger and don’t completely comprehend what has happened, teachers have taken the tragedy as an opportunity to talk about social issues as well as geography.

"Our kids are pretty young and a lot of them were not really aware of what was going on. In fifth grade they did some current-event kinds of things about what had happened and where it was located," Wayt said.

"We had some parents come down today to check on their kids just to give them a hug. Some of the kids were asking, ‘Do you think we’re OK?’ and I told them, ‘I think you’re very safe here.’"

Beech Street Kindergarten head teacher Shirley Casper said her school’s administration didn’t really approach the terrorism topic because of the children’s ages and limited ability to understand.

"We had some kids that asked about it, but most of them were not really aware of it," Casper said.

"The ones that knew about it seemed to have discussed it quite well with their parents already, so there wasn’t much need to talk about it."

Casper said some parents came and picked their kids up early because of the attacks in New York and Washington but that was really the only unusual event in the routine school day.

Thompson said the schools are currently up-to-date with plans and technology in the event of any sort of emergency, although he hopes they never have to put them into action.

"We did an emergency communications check to make sure we have direct communication with each one of our buildings by radio so that if something were to happen with other communications, we’d be covered," he said.