What’s Best for David? : A La Canada couple, who lost custody of their 11-year-old foster child, have reached a bitter stalemate with the child-service agencies that took the boy away.

Jack and Vonnie Schlomer knew he was out there somewhere.

In their haphazard search, the Schlomers sometimes stopped at schools to watch children. They were hoping for a glimpse of David, the boy they had wanted so much to adopt.

It was a forlorn game of playground roulette. To cut the odds, Jack always drove his Toyota pickup, certain that their former foster child would happily recognize the familiar tan truck.

David, now 11, went to live with the Schlomers two years before and represented the fulfillment of a long-held desire to have a child under their roof. If things worked out, the Schlomers wanted to adopt him.

From their perspective, the La Canada couple accomplished a miracle: Their care and compassion helped turn around a child scarred by abuse and neglect. They introduced him to a world of playmates, Little League and Boy Scouts. They taught him pride of accomplishment, of being able to raise his hand in class and give the right answer.

But at some point, the Children’s Bureau, the private foster care agency that supervised David’s case under an arrangement with the county Department of Children’s Services, came to believe that the Schlomers were too rigid and did not adequately promote David’s sense of self-esteem; officials were also concerned because he was taking Ritalin, a drug used to control hyperactivity.

And so, after 17 months, David was removed from their home. Shortly thereafter, their visitation rights were revoked.

Since then, the Schlomers, the Children’s Bureau and the county have been locked in a stalemate of irreconcilable differences. However, the Schlomers see themselves as the real losers in a battle with bureaucracy. Their grimmest suspicion is that they became an inconvenience to social workers who had to travel a long distance to their home. Meanwhile, the bureau and the county maintain that they have acted in David’s best interests.

The case provides a rare look into a world that is usually secret, masked by laws and regulations meant to protect the privacy of dependent minors. The agencies involved repeatedly cited these rules in refusing to discuss the case. As one child welfare executive noted, it probably will be “impossible” to ever know the full story. Nonetheless, a good deal can be pieced together from court records, as well as voluminous material supplied by the Schlomers.

The resulting mosaic is a study in vivid contrasts: If one side saw black, the other saw white. An initial reservoir of good will dried up as each side began to find fault with the other. Criticism escalated into conflict--until no compromise was possible in a contest of wills over a castoff child.

After David left, the Schlomers could not reconcile themselves to the separation.

So last year, they began their wistful routine of visiting schools. On June 20 and June 24 of this year, they scouted a Los Angeles-area school they discovered while out buying building supplies.

The first time, since it was after school, they drove around the block. The second time, they parked the truck within plain sight of the schoolyard and took up stations along the chain-link fence. The place was a swirl of kids.

Somehow, the Schlomers had picked the right school. But that was the end of their luck.

David was a student there. But when he spotted the Schlomers the first time, he was in a car driving away from the school. He apparently slumped down to avoid being seen. The second time he was playing softball and ran indoors to hide. Each time he told his new foster parents of the close encounters. Shortly thereafter, the Children’s Bureau obtained a restraining order forbidding the Schlomers to contact David. The Schlomers launched a counter-campaign that included a federal lawsuit.

Nothing in their well-ordered lives had prepared the Schlomers for this experience.

A former auditor with the U.S. Department of Defense, Jack Schlomer remodels and maintains houses. His hobby is renovating old cars, chiefly classic Buicks. Vonnie Schlomer is a retired English and Spanish teacher who takes pride in the work she did with David to improve his school performance. Married 16 years, the Schlomers’ only apparent vulnerability is their ages, which they reveal reluctantly. He is 56, she is 64.

However, the available evidence indicates that their ages figured little--if it all--in their battle to claim a child.

When David went to live with the Schlomers in the fall of 1988, he was a billiard ball of a kid. Then 8, he caromed around rooms, driven by forces that baffled the couple.

The dark-haired, dark-eyed boy’s manic energy reflected a chaotic life.

That childhood is depicted in graphic terms in an undated Children’s Bureau report written after David moved in with the Schlomers, in preparation for a psychiatric evaluation of the boy.

He was freed for adoption at age 3 “because his mother was on drugs and his father was physically abusive,” according to the report. An uncle and aunt planned to adopt him, but the “(county) Department of Adoptions lost track of the case and the adoption never occurred.”

Perhaps it was for the best. According to the report, David was physically and emotionally abused in his relatives’ home.

When David was 7, the aunt and uncle split up, the report says, and the aunt took him to live with her relatives. A little later, she left the child with that family. David stayed there a year, until the family asked that he be placed elsewhere because he was “so fiercely competitive with their own three younger children.” The Schlomers say they were told by social workers that David broke the collarbone of one child and knocked out the tooth of another.

For a brief period of time David lived with a single mother in a foster home, and he was placed with the Schlomers soon thereafter--in October, 1988.

The Schlomers quickly learned that they had taken on a handful. David had continual problems in the parochial school where they enrolled him. The second-grader was unable to concentrate and complete classroom assignments. The Children’s Bureau report said David disrupted his class with rude behavior.

At home, he engaged in “power struggles” over family rules and schedules, the report said, adding that the Schlomers were “most disturbed by his tendency to ‘fool around’ and dawdle over every activity. . . . He is very demanding, in a blustery, domineering sort of way, but easily gets his feelings hurt and cries.”

The report also notes that David wet his bed almost every night. “There were no reports of bed-wetting in his previous foster homes, so this problem may have been a function of the relationship he has with the current foster home or a reaction to his current life situation.”

In the first months, the Schlomers concede, they despaired of making progress with their problem child.

“He was angry at being bounced around,” Vonnie Schlomer wrote in her journal. “After we became better acquainted, he told me twice he wanted to kill himself. . . . Every night we all prayed together; we hugged and kissed him good night and talked about tomorrow being a better day. I kept telling him he was smart and that he was special. God had planned him to be from all eternity and loved him very much. He felt comforted hearing this.”

In their search for a remedy to his troubling behavior, the Schlomers had David undergo several psychological evaluations. It wasn’t until the last that his malady was identified.

Dr. Leonard R. Baker, an associate clinical professor of pediatrics at the USC School of Medicine, determined that David was suffering from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, a puzzling and much-debated disorder often diagnosed in erratic children.

On a scale of one to 10, David’s hyperactivity was “a 10, easily,” says Baker.

The doctor prescribed Ritalin, an amphetamine that paradoxically can have a calming effect on children. In use for decades, the drug in recent years has been controversial. In particular it has been attacked by a group founded by the Church of Scientology. A few pediatric specialists also are critical of Ritalin, saying the drug carries risks of side effects, including rare instances of psychosis and delusion.

Critics also argue that the drug is prescribed too readily to children and that better-designed studies are needed to more accurately determine its effects on children. The majority medical opinion, however, continues to be that the drug can be effective in treating hyperactivity.

As the Schlomers see it, the Ritalin transformed David. He was able to concentrate, he advanced academically, home life improved. In September David entered the third grade and did well, twice being named student of the week.

“We were now becoming a close family,” Vonnie wrote.

But this period also marked what the Schlomers regard as a curious gap in the child welfare system’s supervision of David. Because a social worker went on maternity leave and was not immediately replaced, the Schlomers say they did not see anyone from either the Children’s Bureau or the Department of Children’s Services from about the middle of June until the middle of October. Neither agency will comment on this.

Nonetheless, in a letter dated Oct. 18, the bureau told the Schlomers that their foster care certification had been renewed for 12 more months and that “you are to be commended for your caring and loyalty.”

But about the time they received the letter, the Schlomers say they started to come under fire for their care of David.

In visits, Children’s Bureau representatives expressed concerns about the couple’s ability to cope with David as a teen-ager and the dosage of Ritalin he was receiving.

The latter concern flabbergasted the Schlomers. They had taken David to Baker at the recommendation of the child-care agencies, they say, adding that they had not asked for Ritalin to be prescribed, although they certainly approved of its use.

Baker supports the Schlomers and defends the Ritalin dosage he prescribed. While conceding that some critics might consider the dosage high and that use of the drug falls into “a gray area of medicine,” Baker argues that, given the seriousness of his condition, David received an appropriate amount.

During an interview, Baker said he vaguely recalled receiving one telephone call from a social worker regarding David. He doesn’t remember whether he and the social worker discussed Ritalin. He is certain, however, that he “was never consulted significantly” by any child welfare agency about David’s case.

The reasons for opposing David’s Ritalin are not clear. The Schlomers allege that social workers told them the drug is brain-damaging and addictive. The Physician’s Desk Reference lists neither effect in its entry for the drug, although it says it can cause “a psychic dependency” among “emotionally unstable” patients.

However, the agencies indeed were troubled by the Ritalin, according to papers filed in Los Angeles U.S. District Court by the Department of Children’s Services and the Children’s Bureau in response to the Schlomers’ suit.

“One of our major concerns, beyond David’s behavioral problems, was the large dose of Ritalin which David was being given for his hyperactivity,” children’s services case worker Barbara Tilden said in a statement to the court.

She added that after David was removed from the Schlomers, he was treated by a child psychiatrist who reduced his Ritalin dosage by 75%.

David’s behavior improved after he left the Schlomers, Tilden also told the court.

David was removed from the Schlomers’ home on March 29, 1990. On his last day at school, other students made cards for him and signed a Mickey Mouse pennant. Many of the children cried, and David reportedly promised, “I’ll see you in the fourth grade.”

For the next few months, David lived in a group home. Until mid-June the Schlomers visited him there.

On their last visit on June 17, David gave Jack a Father’s Day card. It read, “Dear Dad. . . . I love you because you teach me things I like. But sometimes I do things you don’t like. But your the greatest. Your the best. Love, David.” The card still hangs, along with other mementoes of David, on a bulletin board in the Schlomer kitchen.

According to federal court papers, social workers discussed--among themselves--taking David from the Schlomers as early as July 12, 1989.

However, social workers also said they had tried to compromise with the Schlomers on a variety of unspecificed issues and had been willing to consider reuniting David with the couple.

Children’s Bureau associate executive director Alex Morales said in a federal court declaration that after David was removed from the Schlomers, he assigned a new case worker to perform an independent evaluation. He also ordered consultations with David’s school, physician and therapist. The Schlomers say at least some of these checks were never made.

“All information gathered confirmed that the Schlomers were marginal in their ability to care for David,” Morales said. “However, because of the significant expression of concern and willingness to care for and now adopt David, Ms. Robinson (another bureau executive) and I decided to reverse our decision of the permanent removal of David from the Schlomers.”

On April 16, 1990, Morales said, he and others from the bureau met with the Schlomers to discuss a reunification plan.

But on June 19, the bureau formally decided that “reunification was not in David’s best interests.” The Schlomers rights’ to visit David were cut off.

According to Morales’ statement, the Schlomers then filed a grievance with the Department of Children’s Services, which has ultimate responsibility for David’s case. In federal court papers, Morales described the meeting that followed as confrontational and said the Schlomers became “very angry” when the hearing recommended that they undergo a psychiatric evaluation.

The Schlomers’ anger reflected their belief that they had already tried to meet this requirement. The couple had met twice with marriage and family child therapist Barbara Scheinman, who wrote that the Schlomers “left me with a good feeling about them as responsible, caring human beings who seem suitable to parent David.”

On Sept. 10, 1990, the Children’s Bureau decertified the Schlomers as foster parents. Although he declined to specifically discuss the case, the bureau’s Morales cited the decertification letter as sufficient explanation.

In part, the letter says, “We do not come lightly to this decertification determination. . . . One of our important standards requires that foster parents be consistently nurturing in a way that directly promotes the development of positive self-esteem in the child. We have pointed out to you our concerns in this area and you have been unable to adequately respond. We also feel that a cooperative attitude and an openness to feedback in working with us is paramount and there continues (sic) to be significant problems which we see as unresolvable.”

The letter was both a shock and a relief to the Schlomers.

“We were really so glad to get that decertifying letter,” Jack Schlomer says. “I didn’t know what they were going to pull next.”

In October, 1990, the Schlomers filed suit in federal court, claiming that their constitutional rights had been violated regarding David. The case was dismissed in December. The Schlomers appealed but dropped the suit in September of this year because, they say, it would have taken years to resolve the matter.

John Blackburn, the Schlomers’ attorney when the suit was filed, says that the weight of law was against the couple from the start. With one or two exceptions, federal courts consistently have held that foster parents have few, if any, of the rights of natural parents.

Blackburn concedes that some might see the Schlomers as strong-willed and rigid. But he came to see this as a positive trait.

“That rigidity, I came to believe, was something akin to the rigidity of the average parent in 1920, when the fact that parents were somewhat rigid caused their children to grow up fairly straight,” Blackburn says.

It probably will never completely be over for the Schlomers.

“The sad thing is they denied him a home, a family, an education a future. They even denied him an inheritance,” Vonnie says. Jack Schlomer is burdened by thoughts that David’s loyalty to others may have been purchased with snacks and entertainment.

“I just don’t know what they’re doing with him now,” he says. “I mean, that he seems to hate us so much. That’s what’s so disturbing. Do they let him sit in front of a television all day and give him a bag of potato chips, I wonder.”

Despite the concerns expressed by the Children’s Bureau regarding their rigidity and David’s Ritalin, the Schlomers are convinced that the real reason David was taken from them was never articulated. Their La Canada home, they maintain, was an inconvenient distance--about a 45-minute drive--from a social worker’s home office. They emphasize that the area where David is now going to school is much closer to his social worker’s office.

All in all, June was a bad month for the Schlomers. Besides the fiasco at the school, they were ordered by juvenile court to return a few of David’s books and toys they had been keeping in hopes of a reunion. They were prepared for that, more or less.

But there was one final blow. The court order form they received included a checklist of other items regarding David. Toward the bottom of the page, one item had been marked.

It read: “Court finds that it is not likely that child . . . can or will be adopted and orders DCS (Department of Children’s Services) to initiate or facilitate . . . long-term foster care.”