My grandparents could’ve been on that plane, but they got lucky and didn’t go on it, so it’s really scary to think about. I personally think we should have no school to remember those who we lost.

Neal Yajnik, junior

My thoughts go out to all the people who were affected by this tragedy. I think we should be reflecting and being educated in school about what happened.

Jay Gilbert, junior

I am thinking about 9/11, and it makes me sad to think about how so many people lost their families. I think we should keep doing what we’re doing in social studies; learning about it so everyone is educated about what happened.

Josh Baum, junior

I feel like the victims of 9/11 don’t get enough recognition; I think the event as a whole does, but I think we should be thinking about the individuals more.

Skye Joy, junior

When 9/11 happened, my son, who is now a freshman, was a baby and we lived in a different town. My husband went out to go to work and he came back and he said, ‘Something terrible has happened.’ We didn’t have a television, which is a good things because it would have been too much for me. The whole world stopped. The effect has been that it made me feel that life is very precious.

Emily Sinagra, paraprofessional and parent

During the moment of silence, I was thinking about where I was at the time and also trying to think about the people who passed away, what was going through their minds at that point in time. It’s good for us to remember and think about the people who sacrificed and try to keep them in our memories and thoughts as we move forward. Hopefully we can continue to do that through moments of silence, thinking about other ways to honor their memories and our country and thinking about other ways we can unify ourselves. There’s an enhanced level of security, and some people might say that’s taken away their freedom, some people say that’s better. I think we’ve tried to do more to protect the country but some of those measures probably take away some freedoms that we might have had before.

Richard Gorman, guidance counselor

I didn’t hit me hard until later, when my grandparents were talking about it and they were really nervous and it freaked me out. It’s made me respect firefighters and law enforcement a lot more. I have a lot of family friends who have siblings or friends who passed away in 9/11, so it’s definitely had an impact on me. We have a lot more policies about security now, and it’s not always better, for example people get racially profiled. It’s not really anyone’s fault, because how do you differentiate a potentially Arab terrorist from somebody who’s just Arab. And it’s difficult because you don’t want to risk letting somebody by but at the same time you don’t want to seem like one of those people who’s racially profiling people.

Sal Partan, senior

Reporting by Sofia Georgaklis and Rosa Stern Pait.