AIDS Boy Back in School; Judge Later Blocks Return

Ryan White, the 14-year-old boy who was banned from school because he has AIDS, went back to the classroom Friday, but a judge later issued a temporary order to keep him from returning.

Before the ruling by Circuit Judge Alan Brubaker, Ryan said it was “good to be back” at Western Middle School. But dozens of parents kept their children home in protest.

Brubaker’s ruling came after a parents’ group requested that Ryan be barred from classes because he has a communicable disease.

Ruling Disputed

“The judge is wrong--very, very wrong,” said Charles Vaughan, Ryan’s lawyer.

A date for a second hearing to consider a permanent injunction was not set.

Principal Ronald Colby said Ryan’s return to school had gone without incident. “Ryan was accepted by the children,” he said.

Ryan, whose acquired immune deficiency syndrome stems from blood treatments taken for hemophilia, said as he left school that his first day back “was a lot of fun. It was good to be back.”

He said he was treated “just like everybody else. They just came up, a lot of them, and said, ‘Hi.’ ”

40% Are Absent

Colby said 151 of the 360 students, just over 40%, were absent. In 35 cases, he said, parents specified that they were keeping their children home because of the AIDS controversy.

Kathy Shepherd, the mother of one of Ryan’s classmates, said she kept her daughter at home because “I don’t want to take the chance of her becoming a victim of that (AIDS) down the road.”

School officials banned Ryan from classes last summer, although he has listened in on classes from home through a special telephone hookup. He had been out of school since December, 1984, when his AIDS was first diagnosed.

A state school department’s decision that he could return to classes was challenged by school officials, but an appeals board said Ryan could return with approval of the county medical officer.

Dr. Alan J. Adler, the Howard County health officer, decided last week that Ryan’s condition would not be a threat to other students as long as precautions were taken.

The precautions include requiring Ryan to use a separate restroom and to use disposable tableware in the school cafeteria.