Teachers and students at Sunset Elementary School in San Francisco are mourning the death of 9-year-old Mikaela Renee Lynch, whose body was found Wednesday in a creek near her family’s vacation home in Clearlake after she went missing over the weekend.
Gentle Blythe, communications director for the San Francisco Unified School District, said staff at the K-5 school, where Mikaela was a student, learned mid-afternoon Wednesday that her body had been found in Cache Creek.
Mikaela’s main classroom teacher and several teachers’ assistants had participated in the search for the autistic girl, who had disappeared from the back yard of the vacation home Sunday afternoon, Blythe said.
“It’s really hitting the teachers particularly hard,” Blythe said.
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Grief counselors were available Wednesday and today at the school, located at 1920 41st Ave., Blythe said.
Plans are being made to honor Mikaela at the school, Blythe said.
She said teachers will address Mikaela’s death with students “in an age-appropriate manner.”
Mikaela was 4 feet tall, weighed 70 pounds and was unable to speak. A brief video captured by a Clearlake resident’s security camera showed Mikaela running naked and shoeless on Harbor Drive near the vacation home.
Her disappearance is not considered suspicious, Clearlake police said.
James Lanaras, Bay City News
