12 Days of Christmas

Tracy Wright, principal of J.C. Nalle, told me by phone that she would like to discuss conditions at the school but that a student emergency had intervened. She promised to call me back if the school system allowed her to talk.

On the fifth day before Christmas, the mayor remained consumed with rescuing his hugely expensive stadium agreement from certain defeat in the D.C. Council.

The same day, I visited J.C. Nalle Elementary. It was a return trip. (See July 28, 2001, column "A Tour the Mayor Should Take.")

The school's appalling and dehumanizing surroundings hadn't changed. On the south side of C Street SE, hulking and ghastly abandoned shells of multistory public housing still stared at J.C. Nalle and the playground. To ask children to learn and play in the midst of such ugliness and despair borders on child abuse. (See for yourself -- Nalle is at 50th and C streets SE.)

The surveillance camera attached to the school building pointed at the spot where Parker was discovered. Scattered dirt covered the ground where she had lain bleeding. The gate leading to the playground was open, the lock still broken, eight days after her body had been removed.

A metal school door leading to another part of the playground was pocked by 13 bullets. Four protrusions were on the door's interior (they looked like metal nipples), bulges where the bullets almost made it into the school. The door has been in that condition for at least three years, Larson said. Little kids see it every day.

On the fourth day before Christmas, the extra police presence at the school had

disappeared.

An e-mail arrived from Alexis Moore, chief communications officer for the D.C. Public Schools, advising me that while officials at school system headquarters "appreciate your concern for this school family," the adults and students need time to "process, or even completely mourn, the event." Moore asked that I not write "about this tragedy until at least after Jan. 2, so that some time can pass."

I declined, citing the continuing nature of J.C. Nalle's appalling environment for learning. I threw in a few questions of my own, such as whether the superintendent had visited the school since the body was found on the playground.

On the third day before Christmas, Moore called to say an associate superintendent visited the school on the day the body was found.

Meanwhile, at noontime, the mayor made a last-minute shopping excursion, and his public relations folks issued a news release quoting him as declaring, "There's great shopping downtown." He also touted the baseball stadium deal.

On the second day before Christmas, I asked the school system, through Moore, to explain why locks on the playground's gates had not been repaired and why the bullet-pocked exterior door had not been replaced.

At 1:08 p.m., Moore replied via e-mail: "Our facilities people delivered a chain and padlock for the fence and began repairing the lights at Nalle today. While I cannot explain why the door has yet to be replaced, the engineers plan to complete a short-term repair involving sheet metal next week."

On the last day before Christmas, D.C. clergy are busy preparing Christmas Day sermons to proclaim the birth of light and the death of darkness . . . except, maybe, around J.C. Nalle Elementary School when the sun goes down.

kingc@washpost.com