California law requiring vaccinations at schools set to kick in

Parents will no longer be able to use religious or personal beliefs as reasons to not vaccinate their children, under a state law that takes effect Friday.

The law touches a thick vein of mistrust and anger among parents who believe that vaccines contribute to autism and other conditions or illnesses, or who otherwise disagree with the need for vaccinations.

But the law’s impact - as measured in students withdrawn from public or private schools, or not enrolled - won’t be apparent until the start of the next school year. That’s when students registering for kindergarten or progressing from sixth to seventh grade will need to prove they have been immunized against 10 specified communicable diseases, including measles, whooping cough and chicken pox.

“We wouldn’t anticipate seeing any change until the fall 2016 kindergarten registration,” said Barbara Bickford, superintendent of the Twin Hills Union School District in west Sonoma County, where many schools rank among the lowest in the county for immunization rates.

The preponderance of scientific research has found no link between vaccines and the feared ill-effects, and a widely cited 1998 paper linking the two has been debunked and retracted. Nonetheless, immunization opponents continue to assert that vaccinations can harm children.

Three Twin Hills district schools have vaccination rates well below the 90 percent threshold that indicates adequate protection for the population at large, according to the state Department of Public Health. The overall rate for Sonoma County public and private schools last year was 91.48 percent, just below the statewide rate of 92.55 percent.

SunRidge Charter School, a public Waldorf-inspired school, had an immunization rate of 67 percent among seventh graders last year. Orchard View School, an independent kindergarten through 12th-grade charter school, had a rate of 80 percent among seventh graders. Apple Blossom, a kindergarten through fifth grade school, had an 83 percent rate of full immunizations among its students.

Bickford said she doesn’t expect much if any impact at either Apple Blossom School, or at Twin Hills, a middle school. However, she said, “I anticipate there may be an impact on kindergarten registration at SunRidge, but we don’t know what will happen.”

In the Sebastopol Union School District, the Sebastopol Independent Charter School had a vaccination rate of 75 percent for seventh-graders last year. Executive Director Chris Topham said the school has spent thousands of dollars and at least 100 hours of staff time trying to figure out the new law and field questions from and inform parents about it.

A presentation by the county’s deputy health officer, Karen Holbrook, drew a standing room only crowd, he said.

As to the impact, Topham said, one indicator is that of the school’s class of about 30 sixth-graders transitioning next year to seventh grade, as of now, not one is to be withdrawn.

“They’re getting on board,” he said. “I have not heard from a single parents in our current sixth grade that ‘We are not going to get our child vaccinated, and we will not be returning.’”

Under the law, medical exemptions are granted to children with serious health issues, as well as to students who are home-schooled or in independent study programs.

However, it is still unclear whether for schools that operate independent study programs, the new law would apply for classes that are held on site. Some such schools have decided, ahead of clarification from the state to play it safe.

For example, Pathway Charter School in Rohnert Park posted the following notice on its website referring to personal belief exemptions or PBEs: “We have determined that our overriding concern is for the health and safety of our children. We know that the implementation of this law will draw more children into our program who will have PBEs, Increasing the percentage of unvaccinated students in our classes will place our students at an increased risk of exposure to disease. We are not willing to take this chance.”

Public health officials have been anticipating the new law, though they are careful to acknowledge the fears of parents who resist immunizing their children.

Asked whether she is welcoming the law as a step forward for public health, Deputy Health Officer Karen Holbrook said, “That discussion has already been had last year,” and referred to Gov. Jerry Brown’s statement when he signed the bill.

“The science is clear that vaccines dramatically protect children against a number of infectious and dangerous diseases,” Brown wrote. “While it’s true that no medical intervention is without risk, the evidence shows that immunization powerfully benefits and protects the community.”

Asked whether she foresaw a better protected Sonoma County populace, Holbrook said: “I’m going to uphold the law and we’ll follow along - we do disease surveillance, so ask me in a year or a couple of years.”

Staff Writer Jeremy Hay blogs about education at extracredit.blogs.pressdemocrat.com. You can reach him at 521-5212 or jeremy.hay@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @jeremyhay