On April 7, 2026, John F. Kennedy brought back the every 15-minute program after 7 years due to Covid 19. This program is very important because people from all over Sacramento come together to share their tragic stories about their loved ones. This program is also to show young adults and teenagers the consequences of their actions when it comes to drinking and driving, especially during prom season.
Juniors and Seniors at John F Kennedy were released from their second period to view a mock scenario of a car crash that had happened due to teenagers driving under the influence. The crime scene had started off with a car collision with a car on top of another. As students from all across campus arrived, they watched a senior at John F Kennedy, Khaiyuri Jones, call the police to report the collision. When the police and fire and rescue arrived, Diego Avalos Daniels had been pronounced dead upon arrival.
Tyler Woodard and Grace Hall-Sandlund were in the second car of the collision at the hospital they had been confirmed with serious Injuries. Tyler Woodard was in a fatal and critical condition at the scene of the crime. At approximately 10:29 A.M., a helicopter had arrived, rushing him to the emergency room, where he would later be pronounced dead at 11:07 A.M. Khaiyuri Jones and Grace Hall Sandlund were the only survivors of the car crash. Grace Hall-Sandlund had a spinal cord injury, which had unfortunately left her with permanent damage, leaving her paralyzed from the waist down.
Tyler Woodard mentioned the process of this event, “The students needed to create a script about drunk driving, we were transported to the hospital and pretended to be injured with bandages covering our bodies from head to toe. This event is important to let students know that this is very dangerous and how this can impact your life and the people around you.”
On April 8, 2026, Juniors and Seniors were released from their third period classes to the gym where they would be participating in a mock funeral of all their beloved classmates who did not survive the collision. The ceremony had started with a casket being brought into the gym, and placed in front of the family members of the deceased in the accident. Students at John F. Kennedy had watched a 17-minute video of everything that had led up to the collision. The video showed all the young adults the consequences of drinking and driving and being under the influence especially, with prom season coming up.
After the video was shown Mrs. Bianca had given the students a speech on why the program was brought back. Students had also gotten a speech from MADD/The parents of Micheal Alvarado on what this program symbolized and why it’s important to Kennedy, On December,12 2004 Micheal Alvarado had unfortunately passed away due to driving under the influence of substances, at the time, he just graduated from Kennedy 6 months earlier, which is why it’s very important to Kennedy because it is close to us, and every selfish decision can affect the people around you. It’s been 24 years, and that one decision he made still affects the people around him. Statistics show that every 15 minutes, a person dies from a car crash, particularly from driving.
At the end of the ceremony, Mr Brown gave us a speech on why the Every 15 Minute Program was important to him. He spoke from personal experience and said, “On February 8, 2024, my wife and I were driving to school, and we got hit by an intoxicated driver on our way to work.”
He spoke about the issues of drunk driving and the hypothetical because it had affected him and the people around him. The main point of the program, called every fifteen minutes, had a statistic that every fifteen minutes someone dies due to drunk driving, and doing the program allows them to show them the lasting, real-life consequences of their decisions on family, friends, and the community. Mr Brown spoke to students at JFK about how we all had the power to make decisions for our future and how they were very important because one wrong decision could take all that power away.
Assistant Principal Mr. Jaime says, “The purpose of the simulation was to bring awareness to teens who get behind the wheel drinking while impaired, or taking any type of drugs.” He states that he wants young adults to know that it doesn’t matter how much you take, you can be impaired just by the littlest things, and behind the wheel after a car crash, it won’t matter because that little amount of substance can be responsible for your death or the death of another.
