Test of Wills Over Schools : Education: Jimmy Peters, 6, barred last spring from a Huntington Beach campus because of his behavior, is welcomed there. His father wants to enroll him elsewhere in the district over officials’ objections.

When class begins in Room 1 at Circle View Elementary School this morning, school officials expect to enroll Jimmy Peters, a 6-year-old who has been at the center of a legal battle over mainstreaming special-education students.

But Jimmy’s father has other ideas.

After the Ocean View school district spent $5,000 this summer training a special teacher and preparing the classroom for first-grader Jimmy, who district officials say is prone to violent outbursts, Jim Peters on Tuesday told them he wants his son to go to Golden View Elementary School instead. Their preparations, he said, weren’t sufficient.

After the three-hour meeting, which was attended by attorneys for Peters and the district, both sides said they would stand firm in their decisions.

“I’m determined not to stick Jimmy in a situation where it will be harmful to him,” Peters said. “This district must know that I will be relentless in my efforts to ensure that Jimmy has an appropriate educational program.”

District officials said that after their preparation and expense, the last-minute request to have Jimmy attend another school was “unreasonable.”

“The district has trained staff at Circle View. It is ironic that despite Mr. Peters’ previous demands for staff training, he insists on sending Jimmy to Golden View, where the staff has not yet been trained,” said Ronald D. Wenkart, attorney for the school district.

Administrators tried to remove Jimmy from his kindergarten class last spring, contending he was constantly disruptive and had several violent outbursts. But Jimmy’s father refused to put him in a special class.

The school district then took the locally unprecedented step of filing a lawsuit against Jimmy after he bit his teacher in May, sending her home on stress leave.

But the district’s last-ditch effort failed when a judge sent Jimmy back for the final days of school amid protests from parents of his classmates, some of whom pulled their children out of school when he returned.

During summer vacation, Supt. James R. Tarwater said, the district “made adequate preparation for the child. To make a move now would be a real detriment in terms of being prepared to provide a safe environment for him.”

But Peters said a transfer would not be a major inconvenience since the two specialists who would work with his son are not based at a single school.

Peters said he also is concerned about parents who don’t want Jimmy at Circle View and who protested his presence there last year. In addition, he is upset that the district has refused to hire the boy’s baby-sitter as an instructional aide to be in the classroom, hiring someone else instead.

The father also requested that the district replace a window in the classroom with a two-way mirror so Jimmy and others in the classroom could be observed.

“The school district is not providing for Jimmy’s safety,” Peters said. “They have all these parents who were complaining and picketing, coming into class and taking notes on my son. They have done nothing to change policies to ensure that the same thing that happened last year does not happen this year.”

If he returns to Circle View this year, Jimmy would be one of 18 first-graders in the class, which also will have 10 kindergartners, officials said.

Peters, who is divorced and has full custody of Jimmy, also is a candidate in the November election for a seat on the Ocean View school board.

He was among the parents who attended an orientation at the school Wednesday morning where Jimmy’s situation was discussed.

“We have had no parents request that their child be taken out of the class at this time,” Tarwater said. “These parents are aware. At (Golden View), none of that preparation has taken place.”

School district officials, who said they tried to compromise with Peters, were angry and disappointed after Tuesday’s meeting.

“The staff has made an effort to get ready for Jimmy,” Wenkart said. “For (Peters) at the last minute to pull the plug is unreasonable and not in the best interests of Jimmy Peters’ education.”

Wenkart said that if Peters tries to enroll Jimmy at Golden View, he will be asked to take the child to Circle View. If he refuses, Wenkart said, the matter would be placed before a state hearing officer. Under the state’s “stay put” rule, Jimmy would attend classes at Circle View until the matter is resolved, he said.

Peters accused the district of being “vindictive” and said it appears to be gearing up for another legal fight.

“They want to go back to court, and I want my son to have an educational program,” he said. “That’s the problem. They have spent a lot of money trying to oust Jimmy Peters, and now they are crossing the line in denying him his basic right to go to his local school.”