Bronx, Manhattan students navigate D.C. amid fed gov closure

The federal government may have largely been shut down, but that didn’t shut down New York City students’ recent trip to Washington, D.C. 

More than 100 students from Zeta Charter Schools in the Bronx and Manhattan got a special tour of the Capitol and front row – or standing room – seats at the Senate’s debate as they visited amid the federal shutdown.

The eighth-grade students from Zeta South Bronx Middle School, in the Bronx, and Zeta Manhattan Middle School, on West 218th St. in Manhattan, spent three days, Sept. 30 -Oct. 2, in D.C. on a trip designed to focus on leadership, democracy, and civic identity. 

Instead, they found a shutdown, sparsely populated corridors and a cancelled tour of the Capitol with no tour guides working – until an unscheduled tour guide stepped up.

Bronx Native Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez offered and then gave the students an impromptu tour when guides weren’t available.

“This was a powerful opportunity for our students to learn firsthand from a leader who shares their roots,” Zeta Charter Schools CEO Emily Kim said. “Moments like this help them envision what’s possible for their own futures.”

While the Rotunda is usually packed wall to wall, students staying in a hotel outside Washington, D.C., on the trip paid for by the school, were among the only tourists there.

“We were in the Rotunda with the Congresswoman,” said Dan Rojas, school manager at Zeta Charter Schools. “We were the only people there. You could really take in the space and see everything 360.”

They saw some staffers walking around in the largely quiet building that was, if not quite a ghost town, far busier than usual.

“She was an exceptional tour guide,” Rojas said. “It was not a political visit. It seems like she tried to avoid politicizing it and give us some history on the physical space itself.”

Students stopped in front of a portrait of Congresswoman Shirley Chisolm, from Brooklyn, as Ocasio-Cortez talked about making lemonade out of lemons.

“They were excited that she was from New York,” Rojas said. “The Congresswoman described some obstacles that Shirely Chisolm faced and how she turned some challenges into meaningful changes.”

They didn’t go into the Senate, but peered through a door to watch the proceedings going on.

And they stopped by at the Women’s Reading Room, meant to match the Cloak Room, used by male Congressmembers, after more women were elected.

“Women got a reading room, their own private quarter for women in Congress,” Rojas said. “It seemed very special and not a part of any Capitol tour I have been part of in the past.”

Staffers from Congressmember Ritchie Torres’ office also met and talked with the students.

And they stopped by museums that remained opened despite the shutdown and bought souvenirs at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, including squid hats.

Zeta Charter Schools, which opened in 2018, has grown to 4,000 students at 11 schools the Bronx, Manhattan, and Queens. Rojas said they considered postponing, when the possible shutdown approached.

“There was a moment when we thought, should we just reschedule it?” he asked. “We thought this would be a great civics lesson.”