The Arizona Legislature passed an emergency measure that limits the requirement of 9/11 instruction in schools to students in seventh-12th grades.
The measure is a modification of a previous 9/11 Education Day bill that allowed for all students in public schools to receive age-appropriate instruction about the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Sen. J.D. Mesnard, the bill’s sponsor, cited the seriousness of the subject matter as a reason for the amended bill.
“I think it's a PG-13 matter,” Mesnard said. “Maybe it's a good way to think about it. So starting it a little bit later, it's kind of setting elementary schools aside. They obviously can still do it. This really is just whether we are going to mandate it and at what age.”
Mesnard says his stance became more clear when his Kindergarten daughter had to learn about 9/11 at school.
“And I really didn't go into a whole lot of detail, but I could just tell it impacted her disproportionately for what it should,” Mesnard said. “And so I would suggest that seventh grade and higher is more appropriate. It doesn't forbid them to talk about it at a school, but at least we aren't forcing them to have a conversation with 5 and 6 year olds.”
House member Nancy Gutierrez says that although she was a proponent for the bill, such bills and decisions should be decided by school districts and teachers themselves.
“But this bill is the epitome of why the legislature should not be mandating in curriculum,” Gutierrez said. “Their Legislature mandated curriculum and then this year, one of the senators, the sponsor of this bill, had a daughter and didn't like that she was being instructed at such a young age on what happened on September 11th. So it's just a shining example of why curriculum needs to stick with curriculum experts and go through the state Board of Education and we should not be doing this because most of you all are not teachers.”
The bill was passed as an emergency measure meaning that it will be in effect during the upcoming 2025-26 school year.
