Education: The AIDS Issue Hits the Schools

Infected students raise concern, conflict and confusion

Honor Student Ryan White, 13, began seventh grade last week. But he did not get on a yellow bus to travel the five miles to the Western Middle School near Kokomo, Ind. For Ryan, classroom is his bedroom, where he tries to hear teachers and speak to fellow pupils via a telephone hookup. Ryan is a hemophiliac who contracted acquired immunodeficiency syndrome last winter through a blood transfusion. Although Indiana state health officials say that students with AIDS can attend school as long as their condition does not threaten others, District Superintendent of Schools J.O. Smith decided to bar Ryan from...

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