State lawmakers approve extension for whooping cough vaccination

<p>The California Legislature Thursday passed a 30-day extension on a new law that would have barred from class students who could not prove they'd received a whooping cough vaccination.</p><p>The bill, designed to avoid chaos on the first day of school along with scores of empty seats and lost funding, now goes to the desk of Gov. Jerry Brown. Officials in Brown's office said they would not comment Thursday on the pending legislation.</p><p>News of the potential extension was greeted with relief by many local education officials.</p><p>“We understand the importance and it does need to occur, but in the current form of the bill, we have to turn students away if they don't have (proof of vaccine),” said Nancy Brownell, assistant superintendent of instruction for the Sonoma County Office of Education. </p><p>“It gives us a little more time. We can present the information on the first day when students come for their schedules. We can say ‘Look, you have to have this document,'” she said.</p><p>The law went into effect July 1 and requires all seventh- through twelfth-graders to have a current vaccination against pertussis, or whooping cough, or be denied entry to school.</p><p>In February, Sonoma County health officials estimated as many as 17,000 teens were without current immunizations. Health officials have said updated numbers won't be available until later this month.</p><p>In the West Sonoma County high school district, superintendent Keller McDonald said 400 of Analy High School's approximately 1,200 students have not turned in proof of the booster or signed the waiver in the presence of a school official.</p><p>In addition to concern about confused parents and teens being turned away at the front door on their first day of school, educators said the financial hit for lost attendance could be huge.</p><p>“It's $36 per day per student, we know that,” McDonald said. “That's $14,400 a day (at Analy).”</p><p>Still, McDonald expressed concern over what he called the mixed message any extension will send parents who have for months been told of the importance of the vaccine.</p><p>“From my perspective, it sends the message that the pertussis immunization is not as important as it was first made out to be,” he said. “Parents and schools could take care of this requirement in 10 days.”</p><p>School officials said tracking students' health status is difficult because kids can show up to class in August with proof of the vaccine in hand without having reported it earlier. Many said they will continue efforts to alert parents even without the threat of being turned away at the door.</p><p>“I think that any allowance the state wants to give in terms of making sure students are vaccinated will be helpful to students and parents,” said Sharon Liddell, superintendent of Santa Rosa City Schools. “The fact still remains that we will have to continue to encourage families to get them.”</p><p>More than 1,000 people in California have been infected with pertussis in 2011. No deaths have been reported.</p><p>In 2010, 8,627 confirmed, probable and suspected cases of whooping cough were documented, including the deaths of 10 infants who were all too young to have received the first three doses of the vaccine. The numbers were the highest in 63 years, prompting state officials to declare an epidemic.</p><p>The bill calling for an extension is SB614, written by state senator Christine Kehoe, D-San Diego.</p>