Schools will likely now be required to provide the vaccination rates of students to the public in July.
The state legislature passed the requirement on Friday, and Health News Colorado reported that Gov. John Hickenlooper voiced support for the legislation earlier this year.
The state also directed the Department of Public Health and Environment to guide school districts with implementation. The department must provide technical assistance to schools to collect the data and write rules on how often child-care centers and schools must collect exemption forms from parents.
The new requirement evolved from a bill that would have required parents to take an online module or provide proof they had spoken to a health official before exempting their children from getting a vaccine.
In the 2012-13 school year, the state estimates parents opted 3,000 kindergarteners out of vaccinations. About 93 percent of those children were opted out because of personal beliefs, according to a state survey. In Colorado, parents can also opt out their children for religious and medical reasons.
Local advocate Vangi McCoy, who testified in front of a state committee earlier this year in favor of the education requirement for parents was disappointed the bill lost its teeth but looks at it as a first step.
“I believe that we’ll continue to have a high rate of unimmunized children because it will still be as easy as a signature to opt out,” she said.
However, it will still allow parents to factor in immunization rates when they are choosing schools and hold schools and child-care centers accountable for collecting the data, said Stephanie Wasserman, the executive director of the Colorado Children’s Immunization Coalition. The coalition also lobbied for the bill.
Susan Ciccia, director of health services for Montezuma-Cortez School District Re-1, said she would be working with staff to make sure the data is available upon request.
She also said she was happy to see the state was going to create an education module for parents about the benefits and risks of vaccination as part of the bill.
Although she said some parents go to school nurses for advice, it is good to have another option. There are three school nurses that serve the 2,700 students in the M-CHS district.
mshinn@cortezjournal.com
