Teachers want to know which students have AIDS

Surrey teachers' controversial resolution one of several to be debated at union annual meeting
Janet Steffenhagen, with files from Darah Hansen, Vancouver Sun

Teachers in Surrey, B.C.'s largest school district, want laws changed to ensure classroom teachers are informed when any of their students has HIV, AIDS, hepatitis or other diseases that can be transmitted through blood or body fluids.

The Surrey teachers say it's a matter of safety and later this month they will ask the B.C. Teachers' Federation to back their position and lobby the provincial government for action.

The resolution is one of several controversial proposals to be debated by hundreds of teachers from around the province when they gather in Vancouver for the union's annual meeting, starting March 18.

"Young children often cut themselves using scissors or pins, bite or scratch each other, or throw up," the Surrey Teachers' Association says in written comments supporting the resolution.

"Diseases such as hepatitis and HIV-AIDs are becoming more common and we as teachers need to be informed enough to protect ourselves and our students."

Surrey president John Wadge said his members were sufficiently concerned about the issue that they voted to send it to the general meeting for debate.

But he said the BCTF will have to balance safety concerns with student privacy rights.

"I think the right-to-privacy issues are very valid and may win the day," he said in an interview Tuesday.

Paul Lewand, chairman of the BC Persons with AIDS Society, said a child's HIV status should remain a private matter between the child's family and the family's physicians. The virus still carries a huge social stigma, and could put the child at risk of serious discrimination, he said.

"School is a tough enough time to get through if you can blend in, and if that ability to blend in is taken away it will be hell [for the student]," he said. "It would change their whole school experience and would be something that could never be taken back."

Lewand said his organization could think of no case where HIV has been transmitted in a school, prompting members to question why the discussion has cropped up. "Someone is pushing a personal, private agenda that has nothing to do with the welfare of the children or the school system," he said.

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