HILO, Hawai'i — A Big Island girl who refused for religious reasons to undergo the tuberculosis screening test required of all public school students will be allowed to attend school anyway while the courts consider her case, a Kona judge has ruled.

Alena Horowitz, 14, was removed from Hilo High School by order of the state Department of Health on Sept. 1, but will return to classes and cross-county team practice on Monday when the school's fall break ends, said her father, Leonard Horowitz.

Leonard Horowitz staged a small protest outside the school on Sept. 8, and father and daughter sued in Hilo Circuit Court to try to force the school to allow Alena to return to class without the TB test.

On Wednesday, Judge Elizabeth Strance signed a temporary restraining order that allows the girl to attend school until the two sides can argue their case in court next week.

Hilo High Principal Robert Dircks said the case is the first time in his career he has seen the TB testing requirement challenged.

He said teachers have been explaining the testing in classes at the school, and Dircks sent an e-mail to his staff explaining the law and the ruling. He said he is waiting to see if there will be a reaction from parents.

"We have a lot of parents who are compliant," Dircks said. "I think there will be parents who don't understand why the courts overturned the decision (to remove Alena), at least temporarily, and why their children need to be here at school with children who aren't meeting the requirements of the law. So, that's got to be something I have got to be concerned about."

Leonard Horowitz, who has a master's degree in public health, contends forcing healthy schoolchildren to undergo TB skin testing actually violates national public health standards.

He also contends state law allows his daughter to claim an exemption from TB testing on religious grounds because it violates her "Judeo-Christian" beliefs. State law allows for an immunization exemption on religious grounds, but health officials contend that does not include TB testing.

Horowitz has published books on alternative medicine, and has publicly challenged the public health benefits of immunizations because he contends they do more harm than good. None of his three children have been vaccinated, he said.

In one of his books, "Emerging Viruses: AIDS & Ebola — Nature, Accident or Intentional?" Horowitz suggests AIDS and ebola were created in laboratories and spread by tainted hepatitis and smallpox vaccinations.

Horowitz said he arranged for his daughter to be examined by a doctor in Idaho and declared free of tuberculosis or any other infectious disease, which Horowitz said would meet the requirements for TB screening in Idaho.

However, health officials in Hilo realized a month into the school year that Alena had not met Hawai'i's TB testing requirements, and summoned her from class to tell her she would not be able to return until she did.

"Our position is that they are violating their own rules," Leonard Horowitz said.

Reach Kevin Dayton at kdayton@honoluluadvertiser.com.