'The city is not safe' | DC school leader reacts to the death of another student

WASHINGTON — A school leader is pleading for parents to keep their children inside and supervised this summer, as their school community mourns the loss of yet another young life.

The victim in a Tuesday night shooting on Staunton Road near Suitland Parkway has been identified as Jaylin Osborne, a 15-year-old 8th grader at Digital Pioneers Academy.

Thursday, the school is opening its doors during the summer break, with grief counselors available for the school’s students and teachers.

“We are angry, but we just have to do something, it's just not OK,” said DPA’s founder and CEO Mashea Ashton. “That's what our scholars are saying. That's what our community is saying. And quite honestly, our parents are just heartbroken. So we continue to try to find hope in this darkness. But right now, it's incredibly hard.”

Ashton addressed a letter to faculty and families Wednesday night in which she calls Osborne a bright student, a dedicated friend and big brother with hopes of joining the school’s football team in the fall — an athletic program that was launched with help of the NFL players coalition in memory of two other students lost two gun violence last year, and a teacher who died in a police encounter.

In the letter, Ashton also says this year alone, four of their students have died as a result of gun violence–and she worries that it will get worse during this summer break, with even less influence from the educators who care for these students. Ashton makes the strong recommendation to keep students involved in supervised activities during the day, and home at night, writing, ”Right now, the city is not safe.”

“We need to do something about it until we do something about it,” she tells WUSA9. “Keep your kids inside.”

This emotional letter concludes that the head of school is an educator, not an activist, but Ashton says sge plans to meet with city leadership in the coming weeks to talk about what’s happening outside school walls, because it’s clear to her and so many, as she puts it, “the city is in crisis.”

“This is a complex problem,” she said. “I am not pointing fingers at anyone. We've got to come together, the city, public officials, educators, community members. It's just not okay. And we need to do something immediately. The summer is early. We've got a long summer ahead of us.”