Home-Based Charter Schools Are Providing Loopholes for Parents Who Don’t Want to Vaccinate
Despite recent crackdowns on vaccination requirements in California schools, a number of students benefitting from public education are not being immunized from communicable disease. And it’s not all due to phony medical exemption waivers either. As Politico reports, many anti-vax parents are finding refuge in the state’s charter home schools.
There are at minimum 269 charter schools that offer courses outside the traditional classroom in California, according to Politico. One of these schools in the Central Valley has a mere 24% vaccination rate.
“We are a charter school supporting homeschooling families. Current law does allow homeschooling families [to] not vaccinate their children, and this is why our numbers seem high compared to other charter schools,” Eleanor Roosevelt Community Learning Center Superintendent Daniel Huecker told Politico.
The publication asked the state whether these schools would be exempt from the law and the answer appeared lacking.
"Only schools would know if a particular student has contact with other students and the extent of that contact," California Department of Education spokesperson Jonathan Mendick said.
Home-based charters could be the next front in the push toward increased immunization and herd immunity. These schools constitute a "huge risk” due to “clusters of unvaccinated children,” says Leah Russin, attorney and founder of the parent advocacy group Vaccinate California.
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