Photograph by Paul Myers

Administrators at West Valley College closed the campus on Sept. 11 and hung the flag at half-staff for the rest of the week.




The toll of a disturbing week felt at area schools

By Oakley Brooks and Rebecca Ray

After closing its campus for safety precautions Sept. 11, West Valley College officials had a more grim reason for shutting down yet again Friday.

Officials had learned that two members of its community, sophomore Nicole C. Miller and Mark Bingham, son of West Valley student Alice Hoglan, were lost when United Airlines flight 93 crashed into a field southeast of Pittsburgh, after the plane was hijacked.

President Marchelle Fox decided to call a memorial day on Friday in honor of the dead. "We've been hit pretty hard this week," she said, "And this seemed like the right thing to do."

Miller, 21, studied liberal arts and had been on the dean's list at least twice during her one and a half years at the college, according to Ruth Carlson, the college's spokeswoman. Miller lived in San Jose.

Hoglan has been studying digital media at the college.

Both President Fox and student board trustee Vinh Phan said activity and energy on the West Valley campus dropped palpably after Tuesday's terrorist attacks. News that Miller was among those killed Sept. 11 made the events even more searing.

"Looking at all those images, it seemed so far away," said Phan. "This just closed that gap."

Phan said he and his fellow students planned a memorial service for Miller at 12:30 p.m. today.


Photograph by Paul Myers

First graders at St. Mary's School in Los Gatos attend a morning prayer service for the victims and their families the day after the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C.




In deciding to shut down both of its campuses on the day of the attacks, the West Valley-Mission Community College District evacuated students and canceled classes.

A number of students and staff members called in that day, saying they would be absent, and it didn't seem as though many people would be able to concentrate, Chancellor Linda Salter said. Salter added that she expected high absentee rates throughout the week, even though school would re-open the next day.

The State Chancellor's Office and San Jose/Evergreen Valley Community College District also closed their buildings.

Although there was no evidence of danger at any school, teachers, administrators and other staff members remained alert to emergencies and new instructions from the county and state. Police departments patrolled campuses. On Sept. 11, local public schools tried to conduct business as usual.

Every K-12 public school in Los Gatos and Saratoga stayed open. Local schools were not expected to be terrorist targets, and children would be safest there, K-12 district officials said.

Some parents of K-12 students kept their children home.

District superintendents sent letters home to parents, telling them how they could discuss the tragedy with their children. District officials deployed district psychologists to school sites and postponed Back to School nights that would have occurred that evening.

Saratoga Union School District Superintendent Mary Gardner expressed concern about repercussions to Middle Eastern families in the United States. Gardner also said she expected crank calls about phony bomb threats to start soon. Schools received threats of violence that turned out to be hoaxes earlier this year after police found a stockpile of weapons at a San Jose residence in January and said they'd found evidence of a plot to attack De Anza College.

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