BENTONVILLE -- The School District has extended by two days the deadline by which students must meet the state's vaccination requirements.
Students originally had until Wednesday to provide school nurses' documentation they had received the proper vaccines. They also could have provided proof of a confirmed physician's appointment to get the immunizations or documentation from the Arkansas Department of Health verifying exemption paperwork is being processed.
By The Numbers
Out Of Compliance
The numbers of students at each building level in the Bentonville School District who haven’t submitted paperwork to satisfy vaccination requirements set forth by the state, as of Wednesday.
• Elementary schools: 43
• Middle schools: 119
• Junior high schools: 92
• High school: 1,000
Source: Staff Report
The district decided to extend the deadline to 4 p.m. Friday. That's a more appropriate deadline because it's the end of a week, said Paul Stolt, district director of communications.
"Part of it is, it's a natural break," Stolt said. "We really wanted to give parents that extra couple of days to get the paperwork in."
Any student who misses the deadline will be excluded from attending school starting Monday until the appropriate documents are provided. "Exclusion" is the proper word to use for these cases instead of "suspension," because a suspension implies the student has done something bad, Stolt said. The excluded designation will be considered an excused absence.
The state instituted new vaccination requirements for students in grades kindergarten through 12 effective the beginning of this school year.
Bentonville has more than 14,000 students. As of Wednesday, 1,254 students hadn't submitted the required paperwork , according to Deborah Keith, the district's health services coordinator.
Most of those students -- 1,000 of them -- are high school students, accounting for nearly a quarter of Bentonville High's enrollment. The school has been receiving about 300 immunization-related forms per day this week, Keith said.
"They keep coming in," she said. "We continue to try counting them to the best of our ability."
The high school's nurses sent a message to families last week reminding them of the new vaccination rules and what each student needs, including a second dose of the varicella vaccine and a Tdap vaccine, which guards against tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis.
The letter, sent Sept. 23, stated "over 500 seniors are at risk for being suspended because they need a Tdap or one or two doses of varicella."
At the high school's request, Mercy Medical Center provided vaccinations at Bentonville High with its mobile clinic the last two Saturdays. Mercy provided 640 shots during those two visits combined, said Jessica Eldred, Mercy spokeswoman.
Mercy's phones "have been ringing off the hook" because of people trying to make vaccination appointments, Eldred said. She said anyone who still needs to do so should call Mercy at 888-338-3885.
Old High Middle School had 25 students who still hadn't met the requirements, according to Jeff Wasem, principal. The parents of those students either have been notified by the school or are in the process of getting vaccination appointments, Wasem said.
Other school districts are dealing with similar challenges getting all students to comply with the Health Department's rules.
The Fayetteville School District is working closely with the Arkansas Department of Health and area health clinics to get the remaining students into compliance "as quickly as possible," according to Alan Wilbourn, the district's public information officer.
Springdale extended its deadlines by groups.
"We didn't extend it to one deadline because the health department would run out of vaccine if everyone came at once," Rick Schaeffer, Springdale schools director of communications, wrote in an email. "Our first deadline is Oct. 7 with others staggered behind."
NW News on 10/02/2014