Schools located near the World Trade Center site are attempting to find students and teachers who may be eligible for a portion of the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund, said a report by City & State New York.

For the last 18 years, the focus has been on first responders who have developed cancer and other ailments due to their exposure to toxic chemicals and dust after the World Trade Centers collapsed on Sept. 11, 2001.

On Sept. 16, 2019, Borough of Manhattan Community college and a local law firm and the New York City Department of Education held a forum to announce they were going to attempt to find every student and staff member who could have been exposed to carcinogenic materials in the days, weeks and months after the attacks; individuals who are eligible for the fund.

Soon after the attacks, even while debris was still burning and being hauled away, the Environmental Protection Agency Administrator at the time claimed the air was safe to breathe. Christine Todd Whitman and New York City Mayor at the time, Rudy Giuliani, allowed public schools to open that were within a 1.5-mile radius of the World Trade Center disaster. About 20,000 school kids and 2,500 school staff members were forced to attend classes by walking through areas thick with dust and smoke.

In addition, tens of thousands of college students and staff members of the Borough of Manhattan Community College and Pace University were required to attend classes while being exposed to the toxic air.

WTC Illnesses

According to City & State New York, there are 55,000 people who have developed a medical problem related to the World Trade Center pollutants, and more than 13,000 have received a cancer diagnosis.

In June, Dr. Jacqueline Moline of the Northwell Health Queens World Trade Center Health Program informed congress that the number of people dead as a result of toxic fallout from 9/11 will soon surpass the death toll on the day of the terrorist attacks.

Help from 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund

A woman who was a senior at Stuyvesant High School, located just north of the World Trade Center, established StuyHealth in 2006. Lila Nordstrom runs the non-profit advocacy group to help young adults who were impacted by 9/11’s tragedies and the clean-up afterward.

Nordstrom told City & State New York that she and fellow students went back to schools that were not properly cleaned. Their first day back at school was Oct. 9, 2001.

According to ABC News, Nordstrom is a participant of the World Trade Center Health Program because of an asthma diagnosis, gastroesophageal reflux disease, and rhinosinusitis, a respiratory illness.

“The vents in our school building were not cleaned out. The barge where they were taking all the debris from the site was moored right next to our building so they were carting debris past our building all day. The fires down at ground zero which were coating the area with smoke would burn for another three months,” Nordstrom told ABC News in a special interview published Sept. 11, 2019.

The New York Post reported that several Stuyvesant High School students from the 9/11 time period already have developed cancer. A cancer cluster hit young adults in their late 20s and early 30s, who have been diagnosed with breast cancer, colon cancer, bladder cancer, thyroid cancer or one of the other 68 cancers covered by the  9/11 Victims Compensation Fund.