A planned gathering of about 10 former Eden Prairie High School students and their former history teacher, Steve Cwodzinski, will use the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks to revisit a school-day experience that shaped their generation. The reunion’s location has not been disclosed. The Minnesota Star Tribune reported that the participants were among the students who spent part of Sept. 11, 2001, in Cwodzinski’s classroom.
The gathering grew out of a 20-year reunion for Eden Prairie’s Class of 2004, where Cwodzinski learned that several former students had been with him as news of the attacks unfolded, according to the Star Tribune. The planned meeting is intended to create space for reflection and for former classmates to consider how a defining national event continued to affect their lives.
From one classroom to a broader civic question
The reunion also highlights a continuing challenge for schools: helping students understand a traumatic event while placing it in historical and civic context. The U.S. Department of Education said it supplied teachers and parents with crisis-response resources immediately after Sept. 11, 2001, including guidance on finding reputable information to help students deal with the crisis. The department’s archived account describes that response but does not establish how individual schools used the materials.
The place of 9/11 in public-school instruction has since varied by state and district. A nationwide review by the Associated Press found that at least 40 states now expect or suggest that public schools address the attacks in some way. That figure describes state-level guidance; it does not show that every school teaches the subject in the same way or with the same amount of classroom time.
Minnesota’s current civic-learning framework
Minnesota’s graduation rules now include a specific government-and-citizenship requirement for students who began ninth grade in the 2025-2026 school year or later. The Minnesota Revisor of Statutes says those students must earn credit for the course in 11th or 12th grade. Students who began ninth grade in 2024-2025 or later must also complete a personal-finance course for credit.
Cwodzinski’s later public work has continued that emphasis. As chair of the Minnesota Senate Education Policy Committee, he was the chief author of Senate File 618, a proposal for a civics course requirement, and testified in support of it with former Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Paul Anderson in 2023, according to the Minnesota Senate DFL. The proposal and Minnesota’s current statutory requirement should not be treated as the same measure.
A school community with an institutional memory
The Eden Prairie district represented by the alumni gathering is now a sizable institution. Its 2024 annual comprehensive financial report says Eden Prairie Schools has approximately 2,300 staff members and is one of the city’s largest employers. The available district record does not provide a directly comparable enrollment figure for 2001, so it cannot establish how the student population has changed since the attacks.
Cwodzinski’s connection to the district also reached national political history. An archived White House record identifies him as an educator who participated in President George W. Bush’s March 4, 2002, roundtable at Eden Prairie High School.
Today, the National September 11 Memorial & Museum offers programs and resources for students and teachers on 9/11 and its continuing relevance, including age-specific lesson plans. Those materials provide a national educational resource, while the Eden Prairie reunion offers a more personal reminder that the meaning of a major historical event can remain tied to a particular classroom, teacher and group of classmates.
