The principal and other administrators here have been working all day to keep parents posted on how their children are doing and where they have been taken.
Principal Kathy McWilliams tells us a total of 81 6th grade students and 18 chaperones left the school for a science class field trip this morning. As soon as the school received word about the crash, they sent out automated phone and email alerts to the parents whose students were on the trip.
Then they started personally contacting the parents of the 12 students who were taken to the three area hospitals, including Mercy Medical Center in Merced.
McWilliams says she's spoken to most of the parents herself, and they were understandably anxious to know how their children were doing. Kathy McWilliams, Yolo Middle School Principal: "We are a very close knit caring community and when something happens to one of us, it happens to all of us. And we want to make sure that we put ourselves in the parents place as if it was our children, my children went through the school system, I know how I would feel if it was my child."
The students are expected to return here to the school around 7:00 or 7:30 this evening.
McWilliams says a final automated message will be sent to parents letting them know exactly when and where to pick up their children.
