RUSSIAVILLE, Ind. (AP) _ Twenty-one youngsters whose parents don’t want them in class with AIDS victim Ryan White began attending an alternative school Tuesday in a former American Legion hall.

″The presence of Ryan makes me very nervous,″ said Chad Gabbard, 12, a seventh-grader who said he had two classes with Ryan at Western Middle School.

″I’m afraid if I go to (public) school - they don’t know much about AIDS - I might get it,″ said Jennifer Byers, whose father, Charles, is one of the alternative program’s organizers.

Byers and Dean Leicht established the Russiaville Home Study School for sixth- and seventh-grade pupils after a judge dissolved an injunction on April 10 and allowed Ryan to return to the seventh grade.

Ryan, who contracted acquired immune deficiency syndrome through blood products used to treat his hemophilia, is from Kokomo but is assigned to Western Middle School in rural Russiaville.

Health officials have said repeatedly that AIDS cannot be transmitted through casual contact, but some parents believe there is no guarantee against that.

Things were normal Tuesday at Western Middle School, said Principal Ronald Colby. ″I’m sure there’s some psychological or emotional thing for some of the kids because they may have a friend who is no longer in the school,″ he said.

″I feel a lot of compassion for those people,″ Colby said. ″I know some of those kids. And they are afraid. ... I’m glad they have been able to help those children who were afraid.″

He said 20 of 364 students had been officially withdrawn from his school, but he had no concrete attendance figures for Tuesday. Six weeks remain on the current term.

Also Tuesday, attorney David Rosselot, who represents parents opposed to Ryan’s presence in the classroom, filed a notice of appeal asking Clinton Circuit Judge Jack R. O’Neill to stay the order returning Ryan to class.

Leicht said the alternative school was ″not a protest″ but ″a very positive action.″ He said the children will get more personal attention at the new school, which has two teachers, and the atmosphere will be more conducive to learning.

The cost and trouble ″is not much,″ said Leicht, ″if you weigh that against your kid contracting AIDS and possibly dying.″

The two instructors at the school have not been identified and reporters were not permitted inside the building, the former Floyd Marshall American Legion Post, located between an auto parts store and a pizza restaurant.

Joe DiLaura of the state Department of Education said nothing under state law prevented the parents from starting their school, as long as they ″receive equivalent instruction to what they would receive in the public schools.″

″We do not have any authority under the law to monitor the program,″ said DiLaura, adding that it was up to local officials to make sure attendance laws are followed.

Colby said teachers at his school have been helping the two instructors by providing information on programs that would be taught over the next six weeks. ″We’ll provide them with as much help as possible without serving as a tutorial for them,″ he said.

″We’re just interested in the kids’ education and well being,″ he said.

Ryan spent one day at school on Feb. 21 after a county health officer certified him healthy enough to return to school, ending a legal fight that began last summer when Western Schools Superintendent J.O. Smith said he would not allow the boy back in school.

But a temporary restraining order sought by the parents was issued later that day, keeping Ryan from attending until O’Neill overturned it.

AIDS, or acquired immune deficiency syndrome, is an affliction in which a virus attacks the body’s immune system, leaving victims susceptible to a wide variety of infections and cancers.

As of Monday, it had struck 19,818 people in the United States and claimed 10,408 lives, according to the government’s Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.