Steve Burns
WMAL.com
WASHINGTON – (WMAL) Monday marks the first day of school for many D.C.-area school districts. But an alarming amount of students may not be able to attend if they lack the necessary vaccinations.
Maryland law indicates schoolchildren must have “age-appropriate” vaccinations in order to attend school. Exemptions are allowed for medical or religious reasons, though a parent must first fill out a form in those cases. Prince George’s County Public Schools estimates they still have 6,000 students that have not met their requirements as of the weekend prior to the first day of school.
“We’ve been trying to communicate this via robo-calls, texting, emails, on our website, and through information we have sent home over the last six months,” PGCPS Student Services Executive Director Adrian Tally tells WMAL.
He says they held clinics at three area malls over the weekend in a last-minute effort to give students the vaccines they need. Kindergartners are required to get a second dose of the chickenpox vaccine along with two doses of the Varicella vaccine. 7th and 8th graders need one dose of the Tdap vaccine along with the Meningococcal vaccine.
Each school is held responsible for enforcing the exclusion for non-complying students.
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