Bush Praises Levy for Efforts

By Nick Chiles | STAFF WRITER

September 18, 2001

President George W. Bush yesterday congratulated Schools Chancellor Harold Levy on keeping schools open through the World Trade Center disaster, because, he said, Levy proved that the nation's "most important domestic priority" - education - could not be halted.

Bush's comments came during a conference call with Levy and U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige, who together toured schools in lower Manhattan near the disaster site. Paige said federal officials were sending $4 million to the Board of Education to help with counseling and other immediate needs.

After the tour, Levy estimated that a few of the affected schools, which have been closed since the tragedy, would reopen in a month or less, but two of the high schools - the High School for Leadership and Public Service, and the High School for Economics and Finance - would be closed much longer because they were hit by debris.

Levy said the multimillion-dollar Stuyvesant High School, which he called "the gem of the system," probably won't be open to students for at least another month because it is still being used as a staging area for rescuers and then will need another week to 10 days to be cleaned.

Stuyvesant students will be moved to Brooklyn Technical High School in Fort Greene. The High School for Leadership and Public Service will be combined with Fashion Industries High School at 225 W. 24th St., while the High School for Economics and Finance will be moved to Norman Thomas High School at 111 E. 33rd St. Levy said the high schools probably would be using split shifts to accommodate everyone.

Students at Public School 234, which is also being used as a staging area, have been relocated to PS 41 in Greenwich Village.

As Levy and Paige sat at a small table in the library of PS 41, the president phoned Levy and called him "a strong example of the best of America."

"Your school system suffered, you picked yourself up, got your students readjusted, resituated, and you're educating - that's the best we can ask for," Bush said through a speakerphone from Washington, D.C. "I know the city was traumatized by this unbelievable, despicable act of evil, but you're really showing the world that the most important domestic priority of ours, that's the education of children, is going to go forward. We're not going to be terrorized by these people."

Levy said the "real heroes" were the teachers and principals at the schools in lower Manhattan who escorted students to safety.

"Individual stories are only now beginning to be told," Levy said. "We just met with a group of teachers and heard one story after another, and it just makes you proud to see their professionalism, their expertise, their ability to handle extraordinary difficulty. You have good reason to be proud of what these teachers here in New York City did."