With August coming to an end, many parents and students are preoccupied with the impending start of the 2016-2017 academic year. In recent years, a prominent topic of discussion has been whether private schools should allow children into their halls if the students have not been vaccinated.
An increasing number of parents have made the decision to not allow their children’s physicians to administer vaccinations. Many of the people who are against vaccination question the safety and benefits of providing immunizations to their young children, especially after a prevalent belief emerged suggesting that some preservatives in the vaccinations have lead to an increase in autism.
Although these parents are well within their rights to choose how to care for their children, major controversy arises when the time comes for these unvaccinated children to start school and surround themselves with other students whose parents want them to be protected from the diseases that vaccinations prevent.
State Requirements
When creating a policy concerning unvaccinated students, schools must adhere to their state’s immunization requirements. For example, New York State releases a schedule of immunization requirements for school entrance and attendance for each academic year. These requirements vary depending on the particular vaccination and the age or grade of the child in question. Schools must also determine whether their policy will violate any other local, state, or federal health codes.
Although every state has laws that require specific vaccinations for students, there are certain ways in which students may be exempt. Each state’s immunization laws contain an exemption to children for specific medical reasons. In addition to the medical exemption, most states also have exemptions for religious beliefs, while eighteen also contain exemptions for philosophical, personal, and moral beliefs. Both New York and New Jersey allow religious exemptions, but not philosophical ones.
Public Safety
Schools must also strongly consider overall public safety when handling cases of unvaccinated children. In the past year, the United States has seen a significant rise in the amount of measles cases, despite the disease having been declared eliminated from the U.S. in 2000. Officials at the Center for Disease Control attribute this increase to parents not vaccinating their children. Additionally, there is concern that other previously controlled diseases will return if vaccination rates continue to drop.
Schools need to carefully examine the immunization policies that they already have in place to ensure compliance with health codes. For schools in New York and New Jersey, if they have students who have successfully applied for a religious exemption, the schools must be prepared to explain the situation to concerned parents. Although the tension between pro and anti vaccination can run high, schools can take comfort in the fact that their states have set specific guidelines to follow.