Teacher With AIDS Takes Leave With Pay

Citing the stress of being barred from the classroom, Vincent Chalk, an Orange County teacher who has AIDS, took a paid 30-day leave of absence this week from the Orange County Department of Education.

Chalk, who had been assigned to a temporary desk job in the Education Department’s Costa Mesa headquarters, said, “I felt I was under a lot of scrutiny.”

In that job, Chalk said, he constantly had to explain to other educators that he had AIDS and that he had been moved “to make sure that I’m not a threat to the students. . . . It’s hard to keep telling people why you’re there.”

County Education Department senior attorney Ron Wenkert called Chalk’s case “very unusual” and said county officials had readily agreed to Chalk’s request for administrative leave from his $39,965-a-year job. The leave began Wednesday.

In August, Chalk, a teacher of hearing-impaired students, was barred from the classroom after county officials learned that he had AIDS and suggested that he might pose a risk to his students.

Supported by the American Civil Liberties Union, Chalk immediately sued to get his job back. His lawyers presented evidence from a cross section of medical authorities who contend that AIDS cannot be transmitted through casual contact.

On Sept. 9, however, a federal judge in Los Angeles rejected Chalk’s request for a preliminary injunction that would have returned him to teaching and scheduled the matter for trial Jan. 5. Chalk has appealed to the 9th District Court of Appeals in San Francisco, and arguments there are scheduled for Nov. 10.

Chalk plans to do some schoolwork at his Long Beach home and hopes for a favorable ruling from the appellate court. “I’m hoping within the 30-day period (of the leave) I’ll be ordered back to the classroom,” Chalk said. “As far as I’m concerned, my stress level will be reduced by going back.”

Chalk stressed that he is not feeling ill. Though his leave of absence was called administrative, rather than sick leave, Chalk said he believes that the stress of a desk job had caused him some physical problems, including flulike symptoms and a strange “light-headed” feeling.