Miami Herald - Friday, April 24, 1987
Alison Davis and Diedtra Henderson

Christopher Case does not have AIDS or any symptom of the disease, said Dr. Jerry Barbosa of All Children's Hospital in St. Petersburg.

Barbosa and the child's mother and stepfather, Jackie and Andy Moore, want Chris back in school. An officer from the state Department of Administrative Hearings will hear their case today and determine whether Chris should be allowed to return to his kindergarten class at Oneco Elementary School.

An expert on school law said the case may be the first in which officials have kept a student out of school because of a positive test for the AIDS virus.

Chris apparently was exposed to the AIDS virus during treatment for hemophilia, a hereditary disorder in which blood lacks a protein that makes it clot, Barbosa said. Chris receives that protein, called Factor 8, through intravenous treatment, he said.

"Ninety-five percent of children who are hemophiliac will test positive, but only 3.5 percent will develop AIDS," Barbosa said.

That didn't reassure school officials, who refused to let Chris attend school after finding out he had tested positive for the AIDS antibodies, Jackie Moore said.

Moore said school officials told her in mid-February that Chris would have to leave school. She could not recall the exact date.

Moore said Oneco Elementary principal Tim Kolbe, assistant principal Bill Lance and health supervisor Eileen Hawblitzel were among school officials who met with her and told her they had heard Chris had AIDS and that he could not attend school until they found out whether he tested positively or negatively for the virus.

"They wanted the medical records," Moore said. "So I told them about Chris being tested positive for HIV (the virus causing AIDS) -- just the antibodies."

AIDS, or acquired immune deficiency syndrome, destroys the body's immune system, leaving it vulnerable to infection. The presence of antibodies indicates exposure to the virus, but does not mean a person will develop the disease, health officials say.

"They opted to ignore completely all the scientific facts," said Barbosa, who met with school officials in March. "There is not a single case in this whole country that we know of that anybody has contracted AIDS by (casual contact) with persons that are infected with the virus."

"I guess their reasoning is they've determined he's a threat to the other students, faculty and staff -- notwithstanding the fact that all the medical evidence available to them said the child was not a threat and the doctor said he belonged in the classroom," said Sarasota attorney Stanley Marable, who will represent the Moores at today's hearing.

A homebound teacher comes to the Moores' home three days a week to teach Chris, his mother said. Moore said she is worried that the home schooling is not enough for Chris, who is repeating kindergarten this year.

School officials would not discuss the case Wednesday, saying the hearing officer, Diane Grubbs, ordered them not to comment.

But Henry Lufler, a University of Wisconsin professor who is an expert on school law as it pertains to students, said school officials were "probably proper in exercising some caution here."

"What I've read from the American Bar Association . . . is simply that students at a very early age -- grades one, two and three -- are much more likely to engage in a behavior where you'll get a transmission of the virus than students at a higher grade level," he said. "I think the reason the people are reasoning in the way they are . . . is the AIDS virus itself has been found in saliva and tears," he said. "No one is 100 percent certain that the virus can be spread that way. . . . There have been no reported cases of the virus being spread. . . . But because of that, the schools want to be extra cautious."

The Manatee County School Board does not have a policy for dealing with students who have AIDS or who have tested positive for the AIDS virus, but assistant superintendent Virgil Mills said school officials are working on such a policy.
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