Are all or most of the other kids they go to school with up to date and protected too? Even with all of the new talk about vaccine choice, it can be difficult to find the vaccination rates and vaccine exemption rates of your child’s school. Sure, you might already expect low vaccination rates if you are sending your kids to a Waldorf school. Here are some sample vaccine exemption rates from 2018 and 2019 for Waldorf schools around the country:
Tuscon Waldorf School (Arizona) - 52% vaccine exemption rateWaldorf School of San Diego (California) - 30% vaccine exemption rateCedar Springs Waldorf School (California) - 30% vaccine exemption rateDa Vinci Waldorf School (Illinois) - 27% measles vaccine exemption rateAustin Waldorf School (Texas) - 53% vaccine exemption rateOrchard Valley Waldorf School (Vermont) - 56% MMR vaccine exemption rateLake Champlain Waldorf School (Vermont) - 33% measles vaccine exemption rateSunfield Waldorf School (Washington) - 27% vaccine exemption rate
Not surprisingly, there are no Waldorf schools in Mississippi or West Virginia, two states that don’t allow non-medical exemptions. It is interesting that although there are no personal belief vaccine exemptions in Illinois or Washington, some schools still manage to reach high exemption rates through medical and religious exemptions, which are typically rare. But this isn’t just about low vaccination rates at Waldorf schools. Are parents at other schools aware when high levels of school vaccine exemptions put their kids at risk for getting vaccine-preventable diseases? The rates are also available for public schools, charter schools, and private schools. Vaccine rates and exemption rates are available for childcare centers in Arizona too. Arizona Immunization Program
Child care map Kindergarten map 7th grade map
How many kids in your child’s daycare or school are up to date on their vaccines? After a measles outbreak at Disneyland, California became one of the few states to ban both personal belief and religious exemptions in 2015. However, medical exemptions became prevalent enough that many schools began falling under the recommended 95% vaccination rate. In 2019, two more bills were passed to allow the State of California Department of Public Health to review suspicious medical exemptions. That’s important, because Colorado has one of the highest rates of personal belief vaccine exemptions in the United States. However, since the Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment isn’t actually collecting, analyzing, publishing, or reporting on these vaccination or exemption rates, it does make it a little harder to find. Chalkbeat Colorado has posted vaccination rates and vaccine exemption rates for over 1,000 schools in 20 of Colorado’s largest school districts, including Colorado Springs and the Denver Public Schools. In states without personal belief exemptions, many parents seem to use the religious exemption instead, even though very few religions are actually opposed to their members getting vaccinated. Resources to check vaccination rates for all schools in Illinois include:
Illinois measles immunization rate database for the 2013-14 school year Illinois Immunization School Survey Results
The information is available from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health Immunization Program. Parents can look up data for preschool, kindergarten, grade 7, and college. Michigan also makes it fairly easy to see how many students across the state are getting each type of exemption: religious, personal, or medical. In 2019, roughly two-thirds of immunization waivers were assigned due to personal or philosophical objections. The rates can be viewed by county, school district, and individual school, so you can really tell how many kids are up to date on their vaccines in your child’s school. Being able to look at the school level is important. Minnesota school immunization data In New York, the Daily Intelligencer requested and published data for New York City private schools for the 2012-13 school year. Although New York did not (and still doesn’t) allow personal belief vaccine exemptions, at least 125 private schools in New York City had vaccination rates below 90%. Even more shocking, 37 schools had vaccination rates below 70% and 9 schools had rates between 18% and 42%. The report caused extensive criticism of these schools from the public. New York City Public Radio has a Find Your School’s Vaccination Rate tool that lists the 2014-2015 school year vaccination rates across New York State.
2.17% of kindergarteners had a conscientious objection on file for at least one vaccine.1.37% of 7th graders had a conscientious objection on file.Private schools had much higher conscientious exemption rates (3.17%) than public schools (1.13%).
3.5% of kindergarteners had religious exemptions. (The personal belief exemption was eliminated in 2016.)Religious exemptions were over three times higher in independent/private schools (9.7%) than public schools (3.1%).
Vermont Vaccination Coverage Data Washington School Immunization Dashboards The Seattle Times did a report in 2019 on Washington vaccine exemption rates using data from the 2017-18 school year. Readers can pick a city and compare MMR vaccine exemption rates for every school in the area.
