A teen girl died in a Sacramento car crash. Her teacher needs help memorializing her

A new scholarship for Valley High School seniors will honor Kaylee Xiong, a talented graphic design student who was killed in a South Sacramento crash last September. She was 18.

Brandy Shearer, who taught Xiong, is raising $10,000 for the Kaylee Xiong Memorial Scholarship. Shearer said a group of student leaders in the program spearheaded the plan to award $1,000 annually to a Valley High senior who has completed the school’s series of graphic design classes. Anyone can donate to the scholarship online at bold.org.

Shearer said her students came up with the idea as a community service project. Most of the students in the leadership group are juniors and seniors who knew Xiong.

“She was really well-loved,” Shearer said. “She was always standing up for kids, too. If she saw something, she would say something.”

Xiong was riding an electric scooter home from the light rail station on Franklin Boulevard near Cosumnes River Boulevard a little after 6 p.m. Sept. 4, 2024, when she was fatally struck by the driver of a Kia Optima. She graduated from Valley High in 2024, and, at the time of her death, had just started her first semester at Sacramento State.

Fatal car crash was part of a pattern in Sacramento

Xiong died on the city’s “high-injury network” — those city streets where the highest numbers of severe and fatal crashes occur. Sacramento identified this network as part of its Vision Zero efforts. The vast majority of severe crashes are preventable with changes to infrastructure, and the City Council made a Vision Zero pledge in 2017 to eliminate all traffic fatalities and serious injuries by 2027.

Although the city is not on track to meet the council’s goal, the Department of Public Works proposed a “quick-build” program last month that would fast-track smaller-scale safety projects. Such a program could make a dent in Sacramento’s rising death toll.

The collision that killed Xiong was one of 32 fatal crashes The Sacramento Bee covered in 2024. So far, at least three people have died in vehicle crashes on city streets this year: Najah Islam, 30; Jonathon T. Slaugh, 62; and Adrienne Keyana Johnson, 33. The vast majority of these 35 deadly crashes since 2024 have killed people who, like Xiong, were not in cars. Out of the 35 dead, 22 were pedestrians or cyclists, and two were riding electric scooters.

Xiong’s father, Johnny Vang, did not respond to a request for a comment on the scholarship, but Shearer said online that Xiong’s family planned to match the first $1,000 in donations.

Xiong was ‘smart, driven and competitive’

Xiong was born April 19, 2006. As a high school student, Shearer wrote, she “set incredibly high standards for herself.” Xiong “was smart, driven and competitive — but also knew exactly when to take it easy and enjoy the moment.”

After graduating, she began studying graphic design at Sacramento State, where her older brother, Nicholas Xiong, was also a student. Neng Yang, Xiong’s mother, told the college paper that her teenage daughter was crafty and conjured beautiful rose bouquets out of satin. The little sister Xiong loved to play with, Harperlynn, turned 1 in October, two months after the teenager’s death.

Shearer said that Xiong used to linger by her desk at Valley High School and show off photos of the baby girl.

“Kaylee made the world a brighter place,” Shearer wrote, and every donation to the scholarship, “will help create opportunities for students who, like Kaylee, dream big and love deeply.”