ORLANDO — Some have already forgotten.
Florida’s public middle and high schools were required to start teaching students about 9/11 last year — yet many of the kids recently interviewed by The Post struggled to answer even basic facts about the deadliest terror attack on US soil.
“Last year we watched a video, but I don’t remember a lot about it,” admitted a 17-year-old girl from Colonial High School in Orlando.
“It wasn’t on the test.”
A 16-year-old junior at Oak Ridge High School across town said, “My mom talked about it, and I know that planes flew into the Twin Towers.
“I think there was more to it than that, but I don’t know all the details.”
When asked how many people died in the attack, she paused.
“Well, there’s like 100 people on each plane and maybe like 200 in the buildings, so that’s at least 400 right there,’’ the teen said.
(Nearly 3,000 people died in the attacks on the US.)
The student’s 16-year-old boyfriend then jumped in and said, “Oh, didn’t someone fly another plane into the White House?
“I don’t think that was the same day, though. Wait, or was it?”
(United Flight 93, which crashed into a Pennsylvania field after heroic passengers fought back against the hijackers was potentially headed for either the White House or the US Capitol.)
Under a 2023 state law signed by Gov. Ron Desantis, the students are supposed to receive at least 45 minutes of instruction every year about the tragically historic day — whose heartbreaking motto is, “Never Forget.’’
The law was in effect for the 2023-2024 school year, with many social studies teachers opting to set aside Sept. 11 as the day to teach the material.
But as the edict now enters its second year, many of the Florida students who The Post talked to showed they still have much to learn about Sept. 11, 2001.
The Sunshine State, of course, plays a prominent role in the Sept. 11 attacks. The hijackers, it later emerged, trained for their suicide missions at a flight school in Venice.
Additionally, then-President George W. Bush was reading to second graders at a school in Sarasota when he was informed “America is under attack.”
Some students did know more about the day.
Emilio Reyes, an 18-year-old local senior, said “at least 2,000” people died on 9/11.
“I know that there were about 20 men who took over the planes and flew them into buildings. There were two planes for the Twin Towers, one for the Pentagon, and there was another plane that they crashed into a field somewhere, that was supposed to hit some other place in Washington, either the White House or Congress,’’ Reyes said.
“People were jumping out of the towers, like 1,000 feet from the ground. And then [the towers] collapsed and killed everyone in them,’’ he correctly noted.
Alanna Montanez, 18, was able to identify Osama bin Laden, although the teen knew little about him.
“He hated America for some reason, and he was the one who planned everything. He had a group, not ISIS, but I forget its name,’’ the student said.
“My mom told me that the entire country stopped for, like, weeks,” Alanna said.
“You couldn’t fly anywhere, and nothing else was on TV but the videos of it.”
In addition to a timeline of events that day, students are expected to learn about the historical context of global terrorism, the selfless heroism of police officers, firefighters and other first-responders during the attacks and the global response to terrorism and the importance of respecting civil liberties while ensuring safety and security.
