Students with President George W. Bush on 9/11 reflect on the day: 'You could see it on his face'

Primary Journalistic Dispatch & Direct Reporting

Bush was visiting the school when he received news the nation was under attack.

9-11 25 Years Later, America Remembers ABC News Former Sarasota, Florida, second grade student Krystal Davis remembers a wave of confusion washing over her and her classmates on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001 , after a suited man whispered into the ear of the president of the United States, who was seated just in front of the students.

Then-President George W. Bush was visiting Emma E. Booker Elementary School and had been listening intently to the children in Mrs. Sandra Daniels' second-grade class flexing their reading skills, when the look of admiration on his face suddenly gave way to an expression of concern.

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Chief of Staff Andrew Card had just relayed to Bush that a second plane had crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City. " America is under attack ," he later recalled whispering to the president.

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"You could see the shift with [the president] once he got the message, and then you could see it on his face," Davis said in an interview with ABC News commemorating 25 years since the 9/11 attacks. "And then the shift of him going back to his normal self and smiling like, 'I don't want to alarm the kids.'"

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Teacher Daniels told Sarasota ABC affiliate WWSB in an interview published Tuesday that she "immediately knew something was wrong" at that moment.

"His entire demeanor changed," she recalled, referring to Bush.

Davis described the concern among the students as Bush was escorted out of the room, once the reading lesson concluded.

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"And we're just like, 'OK, in the middle of reading, what happened? What did we do? Like, did we do something wrong? Did he not like us reading or whatever?'" Davis recalled.

Though unaware at the time, Davis and her classmates had a front-row seat to history.

White House chief of staff Andrew Card whispers into the ear of President George W. Bush to give him word of the plane crashes into the World Trade Center, during a visit to the Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Fla., Sept. 11, 2001. Doug Mills/AP Meanwhile, 10-year-old Stevenson Tose'-Rigell, son of principal Gwendolyn Tose'-Rigell, was in the school's library eagerly awaiting the president's arrival, where Bush was slated to deliver a speech on his signature education policy, the No Child Left Behind Act.

"I'd probably say it was a couple of hours at least we were out there on the podium waiting around. We didn't know what was going on at the time," he said.

He continued, "They were trying to entertain us a little bit and, you know, keep, everybody feeling kind of excited … but we're waiting around for hours, you know, it's like, 'Man, this is this a long time waiting around for someone.'"

Tose'-Rigell said Bush did eventually enter the room, but the 10-year-old quickly realized the speech Bush was delivering would not touch on education policy. Instead, Bush delivered an address to the nation, confirming reports of "an apparent terrorist attack on our country."

Reporting synthesized and verified under Nexvoro.tech editorial guidelines. Full primary records referenced via ABC News - Breaking News, Latest News and Videos.