(Editors note: This is the second in a two-part series. Read part 1 here.)
COFFEYVILLE More than one in 10 kindergartners in Kansas in the 2017-2018 school year lacked at least some of the shots that the state requires to shield students against outbreaks of measles, whooping cough and more.
The states most recent annual report pegged the figure at 15%.
On paper at least, Kansas law requires children to get such vaccines to attend school. Yet school boards get to decide whether to enforce that, and some balk at turning children away.
Kansas health officials surveyed hundreds of schools and found one in five didnt have any policies on excluding those kids for lack of vaccinations.
Replies from those schools reflected worries about children falling behind on their learning if kept out of classrooms, or about cuts to state aid that hinges on enrollment.
Enough kindergartners appear to be getting shots against diseases such as polio, tetanus and hepatitis B to hit federal targets and make all kids safer by lowering the chances of an outbreak but Kansas lagged on shots for measles and chicken pox.
Kansas doesnt survey statewide inoculation rates for grades other than kindergarten.
Statewide, 90% of the 2017-2018 kindergarten class had received their measles shots. For herd immunity, Kansas puts the goal at a minimum of 95%.
Herd immunity not only cuts the overall risk of outbreaks, it shields those in society most susceptible to serious illness. Thats people who cant get immunized because theyre too young or have compromised immune systems.
Most of the states under-vaccinated kindergartners do not have religious or medical exemptions. Combined, those two groups made up just 2%. Kansas schools cant deny entry to that 2% except when necessary during active outbreaks.
They can deny entry to the much larger group of children who have neither the required vaccines nor the legal exemptions to them.
Coffeyville Public Schools, seated in a county that hit the states ambitious herd immunity target, aims to get vaccines to every child whose parents are willing. Children who arrive with gaps in their vaccine history get put on catch-up schedules to get them up to speed at a safe pace.
I want the children to be protected from those diseases that used to devastate the pediatric community, said Stephanie Ackley, a registered nurse at the 1,000-student elementary school, the largest in the state.
Ninety percent of her schools students were on track with required shots this past school year, Ackley said, or else working their way through the catch-up schedule.
