Two days ago, Governor Youngkin ordered that all U.S. flags and Commonwealth of Virginia flags “on all local, state, and federal buildings and grounds” to remain at half-staff until sunset in memory and respect for the approximately 3,000 people killed on September 11, 2001.
This fall in Virginia all students attending K-12 schools were not alive during the horrendous attacks on the Twin Towers in New York City, Shanksville, Pennsylvania and the Pentagon in northern Virginia. Therefore, all three terrorist attacks among today’s students will never be current events but history.
I would like state Senator Christopher T. Head (R) to sponsor a bill in the upcoming General Assembly, which would require an additional and annual mandated one-minute moment of silence throughout all 134 public school divisions and private schools plus charter schools and technical schools in Virginia. He could easily emulate or modify his bill after a similar one that Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro (D) signed into law earlier in June.
In addition to mandating a moment of silence, all K-12public and private schools in Pennsylvania must provide “a curriculum to educate students about the significance of 9/11″ in the future.
I think that a similar bill passed in the General Assembly in 2025 would benefit all students and citizens throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia.
- Robert L. Maronic