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.
He sent out letters yesterday to remind parents about the vaccinations.
“Sometimes, it gets put on the back burner,” he said. The General Assembly passed a law this year requiring students to get the shot before starting sixth grade. Children usually receive five doses of a similar vaccine, called DTaP, by age 6.
The new law affects the region’s 4,500 sixth-graders. It took effect July 1.
Because the legislative session ended late in the spring and school budgets had already been completed, school districts received a 90-day extension from the first day of instruction. For many area schools, that made the deadline early this week.
Spotsylvania parents were call ing the Health Department office yesterday to find out what they should do.
“Our plan A would be either go to your private physician or go to one of our clinics,” Saitta said.
The Health Department spon sors daily vaccination clinics in its local offices. The clinics move from locality to locality, depend ing on the day of the week. Residents can go to any of the clinics. The state required the new booster shot because of an increase both nationally and statewide in the incidence of pertussis, or whooping cough.
In Virginia, the number of pertussis cases has risen from 108 in 1996 to 363 in 2005, according to the Department of Health. In the Fredericksburg area, five cases were reported from January through August of this year, compared with nine cases during the same period last year. “A lot of the cases are occurring in children who are older, in adolescents,” said Elizabeth Low ery, epidemiologist for the Rappa hannock Area Health District.
Pertussis is an infectious bacte rial disease that begins with coldlike symptoms and progress es to severe coughing fits. The coughing fit can end with an indrawn breath that sounds like a whoop.
Staff reporters Jeff Branscome and Jim Hall contributed to this story.
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.