ALLENTOWN, Pa. — For the first time in history, every student in the Allentown School District is vaccinated, officials say.
For the past two weeks, the district has been 100% in compliance with the state’s immunizations.
Nurses from the district and the City of Allentown worked together to accomplish the feat, which was two years in the works.
- All students in the Allentown School District are in compliance with state vaccinations
- The Allentown Health Bureau provided vaccine freezers to the district so vaccines could be administered at school
- Vaccination efforts will continue as more students enroll in the district
The effort, accomplished by a group of nurses, comes as many across the nation celebrate National Nurses Week.
"We have reached a goal that was previously thought to be unattainable in this school district to have all of our students caught up with vaccination compliance, according to the state of Pennsylvania's State required vaccines,” said Crystal Perez, the district's assistant director of health services.
According to district records, nearly 1,200 students were out of compliance at the start of the 2022-23 school year.
Perez said until last school year, a child out of compliance with vaccines would be referred to one of Allentown’s community health partners, to their primary care physician, or to the Allentown Health Bureau.
Those options all require an appointment, so students were waiting weeks to months to get an appointment and missing school.
Pennsylvania law states that students must be immunized to step foot in a public school building.
'From the ground up without a blueprint'
Two years ago, Allentown School District and the City of Allentown began implementing a plan to get all students up to date.
That plan included adding vaccine clinics in the schools. They started with three vaccine units in Allen High School, Dieruff High School and Central Elementary School.
Then this year, South Mountain Middle School and Harrison Morton Middle School were approved, bringing the total to five vaccine provider sites throughout the district.
"We had to invent everything, make all of the paperwork, the forms that processes, the procedures, the flow of it, just absolutely everything."Crystal Perez, Allentown School District's assistant director of health service
"It really was building this project from the ground up without a blueprint," Perez said. "Like, we had to invent everything, make all of the paperwork, the forms that processes, the procedures, the flow of it, just absolutely everything."
Allentown Health Bureau was instrumental in getting the funds and resources needed to execute the plan.
“We used immunization grant funding to purchase freezers for the Allentown School District and then we had inspections done at starting at three of the school districts to become VFC providers, which is vaccine for children, and with that they can vaccinate at the school,” said Amber Alban, community health nurse with the Allentown Health Bureau.
VFC is a program through the state Health Department, connecting uninsured or underinsured kids with the vaccines they need.
“A lot of the city of Allentown residents have Medicaid or are uninsured, so with the VFC per program that allows children that do not have a pediatrician still receive the important immunizations that are required for school,” Alban said.
'Really important to be vaccinated'
Alban said that without such programs, not only is student education at risk, but their health could be greatly impacted, as well.
"Without the required vaccines first school, it imposes an increase of like chickenpox coming back polio, meningitis," she said. "So in order to keep those preventable diseases out of the school and out of the public, it's really important to be vaccinated against those.”
Looking ahead, Allentown Health Bureau will continue to assist the district in administering vaccines every two weeks in an attempt to keep the kids up to date and one schedule.
"We're constantly getting new student enrollments and that's not just over the summer or even August, September, that's all year long."Crystal Perez, Allentown School District assistant director of health services
“We are working with the school district and we still are going every other Thursday to the school district to help them vaccinate in their health room at Allen High School,” Alban said.
“We will continue holding clinics throughout the summer and large back-to-school immunization clinics with the school district for the upcoming school year.”
Both nurses said the work never stops as an influx of students enroll in the district each year.
“We're constantly getting new student enrollments and that's not just over the summer or even August, September, that's all year long,” Perez said.
“So this isn't something that we need to just vaccinate at the beginning of the school year, we have families transferring into our district, hundreds a month sometimes, and so a lot of times those students need vaccines.”
The effort will continue to be a year-long process in our district, but both nurses said they were confident they now have the tools to keep up with vaccinating the city’s youth.
