Sharita Hutton said she left journalism because it was difficult to cover deaths so often.
But during the 2019-20 school year, her first in a new job with the Kansas City, Kansas Public Schools communications department, Hutton wrote 23 letters to the school community to tell them that yet another student had died. Eleven of the deaths were caused by gun violence.
The district’s response, launched in October 2020, is called Enough is Enough, or Ya Basta in Spanish. The initiative seeks to raise awareness of problems and resources, gather input from students and the broader community, and address some of the risk factors leading to deaths.