Unidentified Pupil Is Object of Boycott : AIDS Fear Cuts N.Y. School Attendance

A quarter of the children in two Queens districts did not show up for the first day of school Monday as parents protested the city’s decision to let a child with AIDS attend second grade.

Neither the identity of the child nor the name of the child’s school was disclosed. Some demonstrating parents said their children would stay home until they found out which school the child with the incurable disease was attending.

“Enter at your own risk,” read a sign posted by irate parents outside P.S. 60.

School officials said first-day attendance was the lowest ever in the boycotted districts, where 49,327 students are enrolled. In District 27 the absentee rate was 25%; in District 29 it was 28%. Citywide, the absentee rate was described as normal--about 2% of 946,000 students.

Mayor Edward I. Koch visited a Queens school and defended the young AIDS patient’s right to go to school. He called on parents not to frighten their children by keeping them home.

“What are you going to do, take a child that the doctors have said is no threat to any other children and just cast that child into the river?” he said. “That’s not just. That’s not fair.”

Court Order Denied

As the protest raged, a state judge refused to order that the child, who was born with acquired immune deficiency syndrome and has attended school for the last two years, must be kept home.

Justice Harold Hyman of state Supreme Court, New York’s trial-level court, rejected a request from two Queens school boards for a temporary restraining order barring the boy from class. The local boards oversee 63 of New York City’s 913 schools.

Hyman set a hearing for Thursday, when he said he will decide whether to issue a permanent injunction barring the child from school.

A special review committee decided over the weekend that the child may attend public schools, but that three other afflicted children must be kept out. The panel said two of the others should be tutored in the hospital and the third should seek alternative schooling because confidentiality about his having the disease had been breached.

‘A Tiny Bit Scared’

AIDS is a fatal affliction that renders the body unable to resist disease. It is most likely to strike male homosexuals, users of injected drugs and hemophiliacs. It apparently is spread through sexual contact, use of contaminated needles and blood transfusions, but not by casual contact.

Some youngsters seemed to be frightened by the controversy. “I’m a little scared--just a tiny bit,” said Jessica Delvecchio, 10, a fifth-grader whose mother kept her home from school.

Jessica said she thought the name of the child suffering from AIDS should be revealed to the other children “so they could stay away from the kid.”

Her mother, Rena Delvecchio, who also kept her first-grader home, said: “I feel bad for this kid (suffering from AIDS), but I’ve got my own kids to worry about.”