Students with President George W. Bush on 9/11 reflect on the day: ‘You could see it on his face’

Students with President George W Bush Recall Sept. 11 Classroom Moment

Tyunews.com – Students with President George W Bush at Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida, witnessed a moment that would become inseparable from the history of Sept. 11, 2001. What began as a classroom reading lesson changed within minutes after White House chief of staff Andrew Card informed Bush that a second plane had struck the World Trade Center.

Bush was visiting the school as part of an education-focused trip connected to his No Child Left Behind agenda. In teacher Sandra Daniels’ classroom, second graders read aloud while the president sat nearby and followed the lesson. Then Card approached him and delivered the news that the United States was under attack.

“America is under attack,” Card later recalled telling the president.

A Change the Children Could See

Former student Krystal Davis said she did not understand the private exchange at the time, but she immediately recognized that Bush’s expression had changed. Before Card spoke with him, the president appeared attentive and engaged with the children. Afterward, she remembered seeing concern on his face.

“You could see the shift with [the president] once he got the message, and then you could see it on his face,” Davis said. “And then the shift of him going back to his normal self and smiling like, ‘I don’t want to alarm the kids.’”

For the students, Bush’s departure during the reading lesson was confusing. They did not yet know that terrorist attacks were unfolding in New York and Washington. Davis recalled that some classmates wondered whether they had done something wrong or whether the president disliked their reading.

“And we’re just like, ‘OK, in the middle of reading, what happened? What did we do? Like, did we do something wrong? Did he not like us reading or whatever?’” Davis recalled.

Daniels also sensed that the visit had abruptly changed. The class was moved to another room, where the children were told about the emergency. They later saw television images of the Twin Towers collapsing, bringing the scale of the attacks into their classroom.

A Planned Education Event Becomes a National Address

Another student at the school, 10-year-old Stevenson Tose’-Rigell, was waiting in the library for Bush to deliver remarks. His mother, Gwendolyn Tose’-Rigell, was the principal of Emma E. Booker Elementary, and he expected the president to speak about education.

The schedule changed as the crisis unfolded. Stevenson remembered waiting for hours while adults attempted to keep children calm and entertained, even as the reason for the delay remained unclear.

“I’d probably say it was a couple of hours at least we were out there on the podium waiting around. We didn’t know what was going on at the time,” he said.

When Bush finally appeared, the planned education message had been replaced by a statement about the attacks. Speaking from the Sarasota school, he said the nation had suffered “an apparent terrorist attack on our country.”

“We’re pretty much [thinking], ‘Sounds like we’re under attack,’” Tose’-Rigell recalled. “So yeah, it was definitely far off from the script.”

Why the Sarasota Classroom Moment Still Matters

The experience of the students with President George W Bush offers a personal view of a national tragedy. For viewers around the country, the image showed a president seated quietly in a classroom as he processed alarming news. For the children, it was a confusing interruption that only gradually revealed its historic significance.

After leaving Florida, Bush boarded Air Force One and traveled to military bases in Louisiana and Nebraska before returning to Washington, D.C., that evening. Nearly 3,000 people were killed in attacks at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where United Airlines Flight 93 crashed.

Decades later, those who were in the Sarasota classroom remember details that a photograph cannot fully convey: the president’s effort to remain calm, the uncertainty among students and the sudden realization that their ordinary school day had become part of American history.

FAQ: Students with President George W Bush on 9/11

Where were the students when Bush received the news?

The students were at Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida, during a classroom reading lesson led by teacher Sandra Daniels.

Who informed President Bush about the second plane?

White House chief of staff Andrew Card approached Bush and told him that a second plane had struck the World Trade Center.

Did the children know what had happened immediately?

No. Many students initially did not understand why the president’s demeanor changed or why the planned school event was interrupted. They learned more as adults explained the emergency and television coverage showed the attacks’ aftermath.