Thursday, October 1, 2026
Twenty-five years after the Sept. 11 attacks, students at Mepham High School are learning about an event they never experienced firsthand while carrying forward a tradition created to ensure its victims are not forgotten.
For social studies teacher Kerry Dennis, the change in generations is particularly striking. When she began teaching at Mepham 22 years ago, some of her students had lost parents or family members on Sept. 11, 2001. Today, her students were born after the attacks, but many still have personal connections to the day through their families.
Bellmore-Merrick’s strong first-responder community has also kept those connections close, Dennis said.
“While they didn’t live through the events, I do think that many of them know from their families the significance of those events,” she said.
At Mepham, 9/11 is not treated as a single history lesson. Students in Participation in Government, a senior social studies course, spend six weeks studying the events leading up to the attacks and their lasting impact.
The unit covers the formation and growth of Al-Qaeda, the attacks, changes to American culture, domestic and foreign policy, the war in Afghanistan and the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Students also examine the attacks’ effects on music, television and sports.
Dennis said students are particularly engaged because many are aware but have never learned the details.
“They know what happened, but they don’t know a lot of the details about what happened,” she said.
The school has also brought students to the 9/11 Memorial & Museum in Manhattan in the past, an experience Dennis described as memorable and impactful.
Outside the classroom, Mepham has developed its own tradition of remembrance.
The school’s annual Stairway Climb was created by the Class of 2023 after students were inspired by the Tunnel to Towers Stair Climb at One World Trade Center. Participants climb the equivalent of 110 flights of stairs throughout Mepham’s three-story building, with the names of the 2,977 victims displayed along the route.
The event is named the Manuel Mojica Stairway Climb in memory of FDNY firefighter Manuel Mojica, a Bellmore resident and father who was 37 when he died on 9/11.
Mojica’s connection to Mepham made his story especially meaningful. His children, Stephanie and Manny, are Mepham graduates, and Dennis and social studies teacher Chris Patten taught them. Manny was about 5-yearsold when his father died and later became a firefighter himself.
For Dennis, honoring Mojica allows students to see that 9/11 affected people from their own community.
“To know that other students who walk through the halls of Mepham had a parent lose their life on that day or sacrifice the way that Manny Mojica did,” Dennis said, “I think it just was fitting that we paid tribute to somebody who had a personal connection to our building.”
The Mojica family has continued to participate in the school’s remembrance, connecting current students with the history they are learning.
As students climb the school’s stairs, they encounter the names of every person killed in the attacks.
For Dennis, that connection between education and remembrance has become increasingly important as fewer students have firsthand memories of 9/11. She was 20 when the attacks happened and said teaching the unit still brings her back to that day.
“I just can’t believe that it’s been 25 years,” Dennis said.
While today’s students cannot remember where they were on Sept. 11, Dennis believes they can understand its significance through their families, community and the people whose names they encounter at school.
“We pledged as a country to never forget,” she said. “I think it’s so important that this not just be a quick event that we go over in a history textbook, especially living in a community that was impacted so profoundly by that event.”
To read more from the Herald's Remembering 9/11, 25th anniversary special section, click here.
