Schools lax on vaccinations

As the school year ends, district officials across metro Atlanta have been trying to educate parents that their children must be properly vaccinated before they return next fall.

Georgia schools continued to violate state law during the 2008-09 school year, allowing children to enroll and remain in class despite missing required shots or having no vaccination records at all, according to new data obtained under the state Open Records Act.

Across the state, more than 8,000 kindergartners and sixth-graders were missing doses of key vaccines —- required under Georgia’s school immunization law —- at the time audits were conducted last fall, several weeks into the school year.

Students who aren’t fully immunized put themselves and others at risk of preventable illnesses. Principals who allow children to attend class without an immunization certificate, temporary vaccination waiver, or medical or religious exemption are guilty of a misdemeanor, according to the law, though nobody is ever prosecuted.

More than 2,400 children in kindergarten and sixth grade, the only grades audited by health departments, had no documentation on file of their vaccination status. At more than 60 schools, at least one-quarter of the students audited weren’t properly immunized, state health department data for public and private schools show.

And those numbers don’t include any students in Fulton County, which Spotlight previously reported have had some of the greatest problems complying with the law. The AJC excluded the county’s schools from its analysis after it identified numerous errors in data that the Fulton County Department of Health and Wellness sent to the Georgia Division of Public Health. The county was unable to provide accurate data despite repeated requests over several weeks. On Friday afternoon the county sent the AJC additional data files; the newspaper will analyze them.

Atlanta Public Schools, the Fulton County School System and others have cracked down on vaccination enforcement, sending letters and social workers to educate parents. In January, the Atlanta district kicked 105 students out of class for failing to have vaccinations they should have had before the first day of class, the newspaper has previously reported.

But lax enforcement was a problem in other districts as well last year, the data show.

Marietta City Schools: At Marietta Sixth Grade Academy, 303 (56 percent) of the school’s students were missing required shots.

Cobb County School District: Several had large numbers of sixth graders missing required doses, including: 159 students (56 percent) at Smitha Middle School; 104 (37 percent) at Simpson Middle School; and 108 (31 percent) at Campbell Middle School.

Clayton County Public Schools: Several middle schools had large numbers of sixth-graders missing required shots, including: 129 (41 percent) at North Clayton Middle School and 123 (48 percent) at Riverdale Middle School. At Northcutt Elementary, 46 of the 119 kindergartners had no vaccination documentation on file.

Gwinnett County Public Schools: At Louise Radloff Middle School, 157 sixth graders (43 percent) were missing required shots, as were 165 (42 percent) at Summerour Middle School.

Douglas County Schools: At Factory Shoals Middle School, 166 sixth-graders (58 percent) were missing doses; another 166 (53 percent) were missing doses at Chapel Hill Middle School.

No DeKalb County Schools had high percentages of students missing doses, according to the data, which are on the Web at http://tinyurl.com/AJCvaccinations.

The audit numbers represent a snapshot in time of students’ vaccination status in the fall of 2008 —- several weeks after the start of the school year. School and health officials said that the numbers tend to improve as the school year goes on and parents receive reminders that their children need to get additional shots or turn in missing paperwork from doctors.

But the law says children aren’t supposed to be allowed in class without required immunizations or waivers.

The reasons children lack shots often involve parents who have difficulty taking time off work or arranging transportation for doctors’ appointments, school officials said. Philosophical objections to vaccination or concerns about vaccine safety aren’t a major factor, they said. The data show just 1,352 children statewide (excluding Fulton County) filed exemptions from vaccination for religious beliefs; 255 had exemptions for medical reasons.

Sixth-graders have had the greatest problem with vaccination compliance each of the past two years, records show. The state audit data doesn’t say which vaccines they’re missing, but officials said that in most cases it’s a second dose of varicella vaccine, which protects against chickenpox. The additional dose, which federal health officials recommend for increased effectiveness, has been required by Georgia law since 2007.

This spring, as a result of its poor performance on the fall audit, Marietta Sixth Grade Academy brought nurses to the school to give vaccinations. And district officials at the Marietta City Schools said they plan to enforce the law and ensure all students are properly immunized when pre-enrollment for the 2009-2010 school year begins July 29.

“We will not complete the registration until they have their immunizations,” said Preston Howard, district assistant superintendent for operations and policy.

In addition to emphasizing the vaccination requirements at orientation meetings for parents of incoming sixth-graders, the district is hanging fliers at apartment complexes and prominently posting the information on its Web site and in newsletters.

“We’re taking a pretty hard stance on this this year,” he said, adding that the recent spread of H1N1 swine flu virus in schools nationwide has reinforced the importance of vaccines in preventing diseases. There is currently no vaccine available against the new flu strain.

When classes resume in the fall, Gwinnett County Public Schools plan to do their own audit of student immunizations —- prior to the official state audit. “This will allow us to monitor this issue more closely,” said Sloan Roach, district spokeswoman. “We have communicated very clearly to our schools that we expect the state vaccination law to be enforced in Gwinnett schools.”

Officials in Clayton and Cobb counties said they continue to work to educate parents about vaccination requirements.

A state health department workgroup has been meeting since January to develop improved ways of assessing and enforcing school vaccinations. The group plans to release its guidelines before the start of the next school year, said Taka Wiley, a department spokeswoman.