PARENTS, TEEN THRUST APART; FAMILY FIGHTS NEGLECT CLAIMS TO BRING THEIR DAUGHTER BACK : COMPOUNDING PROBLEMS.

Byline: Mary Schubert and Patricia Farrell Aidem Daily News Staff Writers

It's been seven months since Christine Paxman was carried kicking and screaming to foster care, climaxing a family nightmare that began when the troubled teen entered junior high.

Suffering interrelated problems - a learning disability and an eating disorder triggered by falling grades - the 4-foot-11-inch, 73-pound girl was taken by the Los Angeles County Department of Children's Services because her parents were deemed neglectful.

Janice and Michael Paxman are devastated.

They insist they have battled for their 15-year-old daughter, opting for private tutoring because they say the public school system failed her, and obtaining medical and psychiatric help to conquer anorexia nervosa.

Doctors, including the family physician, backed their efforts, according to records compiled for the Paxmans in a detailed report by Claude Ruffalo, chief psychologist at ValueMark Pine Grove Hospital.

Even county social worker Veloris Hipp, who was called to investigate, found no basis for claims of neglect.

Then, late last year, Children's Services sent a second social worker, who found Christine to be truant and severely underweight. Officials determined her parents were to blame and placed Christine in a Lancaster foster home, where her weight remains dangerously low and her parents say she takes just one class at a local public high school.

In general, social workers have little choice but to recommend foster care when parents don't follow recommendations of school and government officials, said Schuyler Sprowles, spokesman for Children's Services.

``If that continues to be ignored, you're faced with having to go to the next step as a caseworker and go to court and get a (foster care) custody order,'' Sprowles said.

Since November, there have been numerous hearings in Edelman Children's Court in Monterey Park over Janice and Michael Paxman's request to bring their daughter home. At the last hearing in April, a September court date was set.

The family's lawyers met last week with Deputy County Counsel Chet Zager to see if the case could be resolved, said attorney Dean Masserman, who represents Janice Paxman. One possibility is that the Paxmans agree to some level of responsibility for the problems as a condition of bringing their daughter home, Michael Paxman said.

The 54-year-old father speaks with battle-weary resignation about hopes to reunite his family. ``I just want my daughter back so bad,'' Michael Paxman said. ``She doesn't deserve this.''

Christine has been in special education since the first grade when she was diagnosed with a disorder that slows her ability to process information. When she entered junior high, her workload was more than she could handle and her grades plummeted.

Her parents met with school officials but were not satisfied with their solutions - including an offer to send a teacher to their home in the late afternoon to work with Christine. The schedule would interrupt their family time around the dinner table, which the Paxmans argued was critical to Christine's health.

``The problem,'' Michael Paxman said, ``is that everyone is looking at one of her problems or the other. Nobody will look at the two things together and let us help our daughter.''

Eventually, the state Department of Education's Quality Assurance Unit found the William S. Hart Union High School District, in several instances, had failed to provide or offer appropriate education for Christine, according to psychiatrist Ruffalo's report.

And all along Christine was suffering. The stress resulted in anorexia nervosa, an eating disorder in which patients - usually adolescent girls - starve themselves.

On the advice of doctors and after heated meetings with school officials, the Paxmans made the decision to keep Christine home from school. They enrolled her in the Sylvan Learning Center in Valencia, believing they were doing what was right to ensure her education while monitoring her health. In the view of the state Department of Education, and by extension the Hart school district, Christine was truant because Sylvan is a tutoring service, not a certified, recognized substitute to public school under state law.

Thus the School Attendance Review Board - whose members include Hart district administrators, sheriff's deputies, Los Angeles County Probation Department staff and representatives from the District Attorney's Office - pursued a case against the Paxmans to get Christine back to classes.

Involving Children's Services in a truancy matter ``is pretty rare,'' said Janell Bloemhof, a child welfare and attendance specialist for the Hart district who sits on the attendance board. ``Punishment is not our ultimate goal.''

Different opinions

Rita Thomas, the Hart district's administrator of special education, couldn't comment on Christine's case because of confidentiality laws, but did say the district has numerous special education programs to cover a wide range of impairments.

If a parent isn't satisfied with a school district's special education offerings, they can appeal to a branch of the state Department of Education.

During their talks with school officials, the Paxmans also enrolled their daughter at Pine Grove Hospital, a Canoga Park facility that treats psychiatric problems. They wanted Christine admitted to Northridge Hospital Medical Center's eating disorders program, but doctors there said she wasn't far enough below her optimum body weight to be considered anorexic.

Yet Thomas said Christine's underweight appearance left the school district few options.

``If there's a situation that is considered neglect, we're mandated to report that. We kind of have to involve Children's Services,'' she said. ``We don't enforce things. We monitor them.''

A second report of neglect was made, and Children's Services investigated again. This time, while her parents were fighting their case in court, Christine was taken from the family's Canyon Country video store while her adult brother Michael watched helplessly, Janice Paxman said.

She spent five days at Los Angeles County Harbor-UCLA Medical Center for a full examination before she was turned over to a foster home in Lancaster. Other than her low body weight, Christine had no health problems or injuries, according to doctors' reports obtained by the Paxmans.

Living in limbo

Christine suffers from a learning disability that was diagnosed when she was in the first grade, her parents said. She has trouble expressing herself verbally, understanding spoken instructions, taking notes, grasping basic math concepts, mastering penmanship, and even asking for help when she had questions or needed direction, her parents said and state education officials documented.

Her only class at Antelope Valley High School in Lancaster - where she enrolled in March - is math, her mother said. It's not algebra or geometry like most 15-year-olds are studying, just regular math.

Meanwhile, two months shy of her 16th birthday, Christine lives in limbo a long freeway drive from her mother, father and adult brother.

Visits are monitored and limited to 90 minutes, twice a week. Every Wednesday and Friday, the Paxmans make the 1-1/2-hour round-trip drive to the Antelope Valley to spend time with their daughter.

``She wants to come home,'' Michael Paxman said.

The parents have sought help from Rep. Howard ``Buck'' McKeon, R-Santa Clarita, who sent a letter May 28 to Peter Digre, executive director of the Department of Children's Services, on behalf of his constituents.

``Based on the information Mr. and Mrs. Paxman have supplied my office, it appears their family was effectively caring for their daughter, and the action by your department may have been premature and unwarranted,'' McKeon's letter stated.

``I am respectfully requesting that your department carefully review the case,'' the congressman added. ``If all other issues and conditions are adequately addressed, I urge your department to withdraw any legal action against the Paxman family and return Christine to her home.''

Sprowles, of children's services, said county social workers remove children from their parents' homes when they can make a strong enough case to the courts to win a custody order, he said. ``The court doesn't just rubber-stamp everything we do,'' he said.

Instances of medical negligence are among the situations that DCS is required by law to act on. ``If (the minor's) life is in jeopardy, then we take action . . . that is in the best interest and the health or safety of the child,'' Sprowles said.

A dispute over truancy wouldn't prompt DCS to put a child in a foster home, he said, but failing health from an eating disorder would be sufficient cause.

Sprowles would discuss few specifics of the Paxman case. ``This child is attending public school in Lancaster. She's commuting on the bus,'' he said. ``She is enrolled in a . . . court-approved special education program.''

Making memories

Meanwhile, attorney fees have drained the family's savings and forced them to put their two-story, four-bedroom house up for sale, said Janice Paxman, 50.

Tears come to her eyes when she sits alone in her daughter's pink, ruffly bedroom - its stuffed animals and dolls, movie posters from ``Twister'' and ``Suspicious Minds'' and rows of books illustrating the transition from little girl to teen.

Christine won't see her dad today for Father's Day. They gathered Friday in a Palmdale park to mark the day together with a cake, Michael Paxman said.

She wasn't allowed to spend Mother's Day or Easter with her parents, who usually bring their daughter's cats, Brandi and Nicki, when they visit. There was a conspicuous observer in the room as the family marked Christmas and rang in the New Year, Janice Paxman `added.

Worse yet, Aug. 3, a significant day for Christine, falls on a Sunday - not one of the Paxmans' regular visitation days. If things were different, Christine might celebrate this milestone birthday like other teen-agers who have come of driving age - at the DMV, getting her license.

``She wants to be home when that (birthday) happens. She's asking to go to Disneyland on her 16th birthday,'' Janice Paxman said.

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

Photo: (1--color) Michael and Janice Paxman sit in their daughter Christine's room, holding a picture of the teen-ager.

(2) The Paxman family is son Michael, daughter Christine, father Michael and mother Janice.

John Lazar/Special to the Daily News