Vaccinations rates required by law, some school districts still wait for updates

ASHLAND, Ore.– Oregon law requires schools to make vaccination and exemption rates public twice a year but many school districts in southern Oregon aren’t doing that including in Ashland where some schools have vaccination rates as low as 50 percent.

Under Senate Bill 895, passed in 2015, school’s are required to share their immunization and exemption rates 30 days after the start of school and 30 days after exclusion day. In the case of the Ashland School District, the latest numbers posted on its website are from February of 2018.

According to the Oregon Health Authority, that’s because of an Oregon Administrative Rule that allows school’s to use the previous year’s data if it’s the most current available.

“So while they have all the updated records from this year they may be still reposting the rates from last year until they are actually able to calculate that as a rate,” said Stacy de Assis Matthews, school law coordinator for the OHA’s public health division.

OHA says some school districts can get their updated numbers faster than others who may have the state or county calculate it for them.

“Some of the school computer systems have a nice report that they can get it all generated very quickly and some of them don’t have that report so they have to basically extract them out or report them to the health department who does the calculations for them,” said de Assis Matthews.

The Ashland School District says they will have updated numbers after exclusion day and will update them within the 30 days required by law.

As of last year’s data, the school district is on the low end for vaccination rates with some 75 percent of students at Ashland High School vaccinated. John Muir Elementary School has a vaccination rate of 50 percent and 42 percent of students at Willow Wind Community Learning Center have all their vaccinations.

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