‘Nice to Be One of the Kids Again’ : Boy With AIDS Antibodies Returns to El Toro School

What with “making five new friends,” warding off the attentions of some female classmates and mastering a playground game, Monday proved to be exhilarating but marvelously ordinary for Channon Phipps.

An hour after his triumphant return to his El Toro elementary school, the 11-year-old was rumbling down the freeway with scores of children in a bus bound for Melodyland Christian Center in Anaheim.

It was Channon’s first field trip since last June and--more importantly--his first day back to school following a judge’s ruling Thursday that Saddleback Valley Unified School District officials reinstate the boy, whose blood contains AIDS antibodies.

And afterward, he remarked with a grin, “it was nice to be just one of the kids again.”

His day had begun at 8 a.m. when Channon and his aunt, Deborha Phipps, also his legal guardian, met with Evelyn Campbell, principal of Rancho Canada Elementary School.

She set down some rules the boy must abide by in order to attend the school: no biting or fighting with other students and no contact sports. Then Channon was introduced to his new class--hand-picked because the fifth-grade students in it “have shown a remarkable compassion and acceptance” of the boy, according to Phipps.

Though Phipps had anticipated some parents withdrawing their children from the school, district spokesman Jeff Herdman said that it appeared none had done so and that he had received no calls protesting Channon’s return.

He Was ‘Kind of Nervous’

“When I came in (to the classroom) I was shaking; I was kind of nervous,” Channon said. “It felt like a long time (away from school). My teacher said, ‘Glad to have you back,’ and then some of the kids just started talking to me.” In between wrestling with his younger brother, Chris, on the living room couch of the family’s El Toro condominium, Channon recounted his first day back at school for the umpteenth time with a mixture of delight and boredom.

The three-hour field trip to Melodyland, a large church that provided musical entertainment and magic acts for the students, had been fun except “when this guy from a (TV station) had this big lens in my face.”

Later, back at school, “I played some games with some of the kids,” Channon said. Knowing half a dozen of the students from last school year made him feel more at ease, he added.

“Brian McKenzie, I had him in class last year and he was the loudest kid in class. He was there. So that was good. . . . I was real tight. It took me awhile to loosen up,” Channon said. “. . . But I played Round the World,” a non-contact basketball game. “It was the first time I ever played it, and I got half way around the world!”

All in all, it proved to be a typical school day--filled with fleeting crushes and schoolyard fun. A high point had been the special treats Phipps had included in Channon’s lunch: cookies, a candy bar and root beer.

A few of the little girls, Channon said with a blush, pulled the drop-the-pencil, see-if-he’ll-pick-it-up trick. “The girls were all looking at me,” he boasted to his brother.

Phipps sued the district in November to have the boy reinstated. District officials at that point had barred him from school, they said, until it could be determined he posed no risk of spreading the disease.

Why Channon was not in school between last September and November is disputed by both sides. Lab work last August revealed the presence of AIDS-linked antibodies in Channon’s blood and Phipps alerted district officials. When classes resumed in September, she kept Channon at home, where he has been tutored at district expense. Phipps says a district administrator told her not to enroll Channon in school; the district says the guardian did so out of her own concern that Channon might spread the disease.

The boy does not have acquired immune deficiency syndrome, according to the Phipps’ family doctor, but he is presumed to have been exposed to it through a blood extract he takes for the hemophilia he has suffered since birth. Orange County health officers who examined Channon say they recommended he be reinstated because he is not contagious or infectious.

Channon’s fellow students apparently have not expressed fear of contracting AIDS. Teachers in each class at the school recently helped prepare students for Channon’s arrival, district spokesman Herdman said, by presenting a lesson about communicable diseases in general but refraining from making specific reference to AIDS. “They all know,” Channon said of his fellow fifth-graders.

“Everybody wanted to meet him,” said Michael Rowe, a sixth-grade student who lives in the Phipps’ neighborhood. “They’ve been asking me when Channon’s coming back to school.”

Monday marked a happy ending to what had frequently been a restless and lonely six months of being tutored--home lessons that will continue until Channon has caught up with his classmates, Phipps said. And the isolation has left its impression on Channon, who says he needs to work most at “reading and spelling.”

When asked what he’s most adept at, Channon did not hesitate before replying: “Sitting down and being scared.”