Students must get immunization or they won’t be allowed in school.

Date published: 12/8/2006

By JENN ROWELL

Local school districts and parents are scrambling to ensure that sixth-graders have a state-mandated vaccination.

Students in Spotsylvania County have until Monday to get the required booster of the pertussis, diphtheria and tetanus vaccine, called Tdap, or they will not be permitted in class.

Stafford County is giving stu dents until Dec. 19 and Freder icksburg has pushed its dead line to Jan. 12.

School officials in King George and Caroline counties could not be reached yesterday.

“We’re making a concerted effort this week to remind parents to get that documenta tion in to us so we can have students sitting in their class room seats and not missing school,” said Sara Branner, Spotsylvania schools spokes woman.

Over the summer, the school district ran advertisements about the new immunization requirement and held vaccina tion clinics, Branner said.

Joseph Saitta, bioterrorism coordinator for the Rappahan nock Area Health District, esti mated yesterday that up to 1,000 students in the region may still need to get the shot.

The high number of students statewide still needing the shot prompted Billy Cannaday Jr., superintendent of public instruction for the Virginia Department of Education, to send an e–mail on Tuesday to all superintendents stating that “immediate compliance with this requirement is imperative.”

Yesterday he sent a follow-up e–mail informing all school superintendents that the depart ment will be surveying all of the commonwealth’s 132 school divisions today to verify their compliance with the Tdap requirement.

In Stafford County, 429 students still need the shots, said schools spokeswoman Valerie Cottongim.

Stafford administrators thought students had up to 90 school days—or until Dec. 19—to get their vaccinations.

The state superintendent’s let ter came as a “bit of surprise,” Cottongim said.

Still, they won’t prevent any unvaccinated students from com ing to school for the next week and a half “unless we get a directive from the Department of Health that we have to,” she said. They’ve been working for months to get the word out to parents, she said.

About a quarter of Fredericks burg’s 186 sixth-graders haven’t gotten the shots.

Walker–Grant Middle School Principal Dennis Keffer said he extended the deadline to Jan. 12 with permission from the school division’s central office.

Need a shot? Sixth-graders can get the required Tdap vaccination at no cost at local Health Department offices. The clinics are open to any resident of the region. The schedule is: Mondays: Caroline Health Department, 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Tuesdays: Fredericksburg Health Department, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Wednesdays: Spotsylvania Health Department, 8 a.m. to noon. Thursdays: King George Health Department, 8 a.m. to noon. Fridays: Stafford Health Department, 8 a.m. to noon.

Date published: 12/8/2006