Some Ohio schools falling short of state vaccine requirements

Data from 2015 shows that large segments of students at hundreds of schools in Ohio fell short of immunization requirements required by state law – and there is little state officials can do about it (Source: “Ohio school vaccination levels vary amid scant oversight,” Lancaster Eagle Gazette, Sept. 9, 2016).

While nearly 2 million Ohio students are required to have certain immunizations to prevent deadly outbreaks of diseases such as measles, the implementation and enforcement of state vaccination laws is largely at the discretion of the more than 1,000 different school districts in Ohio.

The state does require schools to report immunization data by Oct. 15 of each year on new students, but it does not check back to ensure students ultimately complied with state law or were kept out of class by schools if immunizations weren’t received. On average, 8.5 percent of new students in Ohio didn’t have complete vaccinations by mid-October of 2015. Data is not available to show how many of those students ultimately completed vaccinations.