10,000 Play Hooky in N.Y. AIDS Boycott
More than 10,000 Queens children stayed home from classes on the first day of school today, and parents led a protest of a decision by the city to allow a second-grader with AIDS to attend school, officials said.
“It’s emptier than it would be,” said Tessie Pearlstein, school secretary at Public School 60, one of 63 schools in the middle-class borough of New York City where parents kept their children home.
Leaders of School Districts 27 and 29 in Queens reported that at least 10,000 of the 51,000 students were absent today and that they were discussing what do about the truancy.
Parents have vowed to keep their children out until the city reverses its decision to allow certain children suffering from acquired immune deficiency syndrome to attend classes.
Outside Public School 60, where about 500 out of 1,200 pupiles were absent today, a sign read: “Enter at Your Own Risk.”
On Sunday a group of parents drove through a neighborhood and used a bullhorn to urge children to stay home because of the AIDS threat.
The flap followed a Board of Education-backed panel announcement Saturday that the second-grader, who has suffered from AIDS for three years, would be allowed to go back to school today.
Officials would not name the student or say which one of the city’s 623 elementary schools he or she would be attending.
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
