A Wise Decision on Boy’s Behalf

After a long summer recess that started last June, Channon Phipps, the young student with AIDS antibodies in his blood who needed a court order to go with the note from his doctor, finally returned to school last Monday in the Saddleback Unified School District.

If it had been up to his classmates, judging from the reception they gave Channon, he would have been back in class long ago. He should have been.

The dispute began last August when a blood test disclosed that the 11-year-old boy, a hemophiliac, had AIDS antibodies in his blood. His doctor, and then the county Health Department, verified that the boy did not have AIDS, only the antibodies, and that he posed no health threat to his classmates.

Superior Court Judge Harmon Scoville, ruling in a case brought by Channon’s aunt and legal guardian, who sought to have the boy readmitted to school, ordered his return to class. It was a wise and compassionate decision that the school board seems ready to accept. Channon’s teacher and classmates do, too. They have set an example for others. So did the judge.

The case should be a lesson to other school districts trying to decide on a policy in such cases. A school board must be concerned about the safety of all its students, but it need not interrupt a child’s education for months as the Saddleback district did with Channon Phipps, not in light of all the medical knowledge that stresses that there is no risk of spreading the AIDS virus through casual contact in a school setting, or anywhere else.