Two Teachers With AIDS Quit L.A. Classrooms

Two Los Angeles elementary school teachers voluntarily left their classroom assignments last year after they were diagnosed as suffering from AIDS, school district officials said Friday.

The two teachers, who were not identified, are the only known AIDS victims among the district’s 54,600 employees, according to Bill Rivera, a district spokesman.

Officials have previously stated that there are no children with acquired immune deficiency syndrome among the 579,000 students attending Los Angeles public schools.

Disclosure of the teachers’ cases came a few weeks before the Board of Education was to review district guidelines regarding admission of children with communicable diseases.

Additionally, the state Department of Education is preparing guidelines on precautions teachers and school nurses should take when working with children with AIDS.

Under existing Los Angeles district guidelines, children and staff members with communicable diseases are allowed to return to their schools after their attending physician and a district physician have agreed that returning to campus is safe for the patient and those at the schools.

The proposed state guidelines, which are scheduled to be mailed to public school districts next month, will call for the use of rubber gloves when cleaning up blood spills--such as those from bloody noses and scraped knees--or when disposing of clothes soiled by bodily fluids of students who have been identified as carriers of viruses such as hepatitis B, rubella, herpes and AIDS.