Boy With AIDS Antibodies Still Not in School; District Must Explain to Court

One certainty in the case of Phipps versus the Saddleback Valley Unified School District is that Channon Phipps, an 11-year-old hemophiliac whose blood contains AIDS antibodies, has been barred from attending his El Toro school since November.

A strong probability, according to many involved in the case, is that publicity surrounding the child’s plight may ultimately prevent him from ever joining his schoolmates in a normal classroom setting.

“He’s sort of marked now,” said Tom Prendergast, Orange County’s chief epidemiologist and the man school officials turn to for guidance regarding AIDS policy.

“Even if tests show he’s not contagious, the kids will probably not play with him on the playground once their parents find out . . . . He’s just not gonna walk back into school ever and be just one of the guys again.”

Everyone agrees that Channon Phipps does not have acquired immune deficiency syndrome, though antibodies of the AIDS virus were discovered through blood tests his family requested at a Long Beach clinic last summer.

But there is definite disagreement over how and why he is still not in school, and the result has been a second court action by Deborha Phipps, the boy’s aunt and legal guardian. A judge last week granted her request and ordered district officials to appear in court Feb. 5 to explain why the boy cannot return to his Rancho Canada Elementary School classroom.

Seven weeks ago the situation appeared to be resolved.

Why the case is now back in court is a question with many different answers, but one thing is clear, according to Prendergast: “We’re so new at this problem it’s hard to say the right or wrong way to deal with it. You just can’t unravel this overnight.”

Deborha Phipps filed a lawsuit Nov. 26 in Orange County Superior Court alleging that the Saddleback Valley Unified School District kept the boy from attending Rancho Canada Elementary School because a blood test revealed the youngster had been exposed to the AIDS virus. In her lawsuit, which sought to have the boy reinstated, she claimed that the district had expelled Channon Phipps and was denying him “the full use and enjoyment of the educational facilities to which he otherwise would be entitled. . . .”

In an interview the following day, Phipps conceded the boy had not been expelled, but she said she was told by Assistant Supt. Joseph Platow, “don’t bring Channon to school” until the district had formulated a policy on admission criteria for students exposed to the disease. She also complained that the tutoring her charge was provided by the district--an average of four hours a week--was inadequate.

District officials vehemently denied that the child had ever been expelled or told not to attend school and said it was his guardian who was concerned that he might be contagious and did not enroll him in September. They claimed that they were unaware of Phipps’ dissatisfaction with the tutoring.

Tutoring Hours Doubled

By the end of the next day, as the media focused considerable attention on the case, it appeared that the problem might have been a breakdown in communication that had been solved. The boy’s tutoring hours were doubled, and district officials told newspaper reporters the boy would be allowed back in class once he passed the routine health examination required of all children who have been out of school with a communicable illness.

“I don’t think we’ll be going to court,” Phipps said the day after she filed the lawsuit. “We got what we wanted. All I wanted was an education for my son.” All she had sought with the lawsuit, she added, was to have the boy “allowed back to school or give him enough tutoring so he can learn.”

By early December, according to Phipps, the boy was examined by his own physician, Dr. Marilyn Meyers of Tustin, who wrote a letter to the district stating Channon Phipps was not contagious. Phipps says William Manahan, the district’s director of staff curriculum who also oversees tutorial services, told her Meyers’ letter was received. She alleges that Manahan told her: “Channon meets all the district’s criteria, we talked to the doctor,” that everything was “OK,” and that a final decision by Platow was all that prevented the boy from returning to class.

“I have not changed my mind,” Phipps said in an interview last week. “We always wanted him back in school. We thought the tutoring was a temporary thing until Channon had been examined and all the publicity had died down . . . . We had him examined; we sent the district the letter from the doctor, and we have never heard anything from them (since).”

Refuse to Comment

Because of the pending litigation, many district officials refused to comment on the case; calls to Donald Ames, deputy superintendent for instructional services, were referred to the district’s public information officer, who also would say very little.

Louise Adler, a school board member, said she believed Manahan was communicating with Phipps on what is required by the district before the boy would be permitted back in class. Manahan declined to comment. Adler said she did not know if the district had received a letter from Dr. Meyers.

“But we never said we would make that decision based on just one doctor’s opinion. We wanted Prendergast involved,” Adler said. “ . . . We (the board) asked for a letter from Tom, the boy’s own doctor and another doctor saying (that the child) has no chance of being contagious. I think there was some concern on the staff whether Tom could say absolutely ‘no chance.’

“It may be that someone said ‘you need a letter from your doctor’ and (Phipps) thought that was all that was necessary. However she arrived at that, it was misinformation.”

Since August, Adler said, the board has been working on drafting formal guidelines by which the district will admit into school children who have been exposed to AIDS. A proposed policy--which essentially requires that three doctors examine the child and then put in writing that the student is not contagious--will be reviewed Tuesday night during a closed meeting of the board, Adler said.

“It’s been a different and difficult situation for us from the beginning,” she said, “because of the way the family has handled it, making it so public. We can’t handle it like other districts have. Most of the other AIDS kids are going to schools, and no one knows about it. . . . I don’t think the fact that people knew about this kid would have changed our policy. What it has complicated is this child’s life. . . . No child wants to be the center of attention.”

Publicly Identified

Health officials believe it is the first time in Orange County--perhaps in Southern California--that a child exposed to AIDS has been both publicly identified--in his mother’s lawsuit--and barred from attending school. The few school districts that have adopted formal policies for admitting children with AIDS or its antibodies have not been faced with the pressure that followed the Phipps’ lawsuit.

While there has been no sign of hysteria among El Toro-area parents and teachers such as that which caused a school boycott in New York last year, there is plenty of concern in the community.

Shortly after the story broke, the district held a meeting for parents and teachers at the elementary school to address questions about the delicate and emotional subject of the fatal disease. Dozens of parents attended the gathering and were told by Prendergast that transmission of the disease in normal school settings is almost impossible and that he would put his own child in a classroom with a child with AIDS antibodies.

“There was a lot of obvious concern, serious concern,” Prendergast said. Although parents expressed considerable empathy for Channon Phipps and his right to an education, “almost all of them said under no circumstances would we want that child in school with ours,” Prendergast added.

Pam Degulis, president of the Rancho Canada Parent-Teacher Organization, said she attended the meeting and “it kind of set my mind at ease.” Her daughter was in Channon Phipps’ class last year. “And I personally will let my kids attend if he goes back to school,” she said.

“I would say I would probably want my child to lead as normal a life as possible if the shoe were on the other foot. So I can see where she’s (Phipps’s) coming from. It’s hard. I would also have to consider the emotional stability of my child,” Degulis said. “Channon already knows how many kids know. My kids read the paper. They know. Can he emotionally handle that? Socially, I wouldn’t think it would be real great.

School ‘Hasn’t Overreacted’

“But as a whole,” she added, “our school hasn’t overreacted. We’re sort of waiting and taking this step by step.”

Merwin Auslander, the Laguna Hills attorney representing the Phipps family, concedes that had the lawsuit never been filed Channon Phipps might have been spared some playground name-calling among children.

“But can we fault a person who is trying to do the right thing by her (nephew) and wants her kid to get to be with kids in school? Yes, she did mark the boy, and that’s a liability, but she feels doing nothing would be a greater liability,” Auslander said.

He said the district received a certified letter on Dec. 16 stating that Phipps had hoped “this matter could be quietly resolved and a judicial confrontation avoided.” He conceded that all the press coverage may have confused both his client and the district on what each wanted or expected.

“But they never contacted us to say, ‘Never mind what happened in the press, this is what we want you to do.’ Nothing,” Auslander said. “My client was contacted by the director of tutorial services, but that was for the tutoring. . . . My humble opinion is the district people are sensitive and care, but common sense tells me they’re looking forward to the court order to take them off the mark.”