State health officials have given students an extension for meeting new vaccination requirements, meaning students could begin their classes even if they still need shots.
By the numbers:
First-day enrollment in Potter and Randall school districts.
Amarillo ISD: 29,578
Bushland ISD: 1,206
Canyon ISD: 8,681
Highland Park: 914
River Road: 1,411
The Department of State Health Services issued an emergency extension, allowing kindergarten and seventh-grade students until Oct. 1 to obtain the new vaccines. The department extended the deadline because thousands of children statewide still had not received the vaccinations and would have missed numerous days of school, if not weeks.
Officials in the Amarillo, Bushland, Highland Park and River Road school districts said they did not turn any students away Monday because they did not have the required shots.
However, Canyon school officials found out about the extension at 10:15 a.m. on Monday, after officials had sent some students to the Canyon bus barn, where the Amarillo Public Health Department had set up a vaccination clinic, district spokeswoman Christy Bertolino said.
The state requires kindergarten students to have two doses of vaccines for hepatitis A; for varicella, also known as chickenpox; and for measles, mumps and rubella.
Seventh-graders need two doses of varicella vaccine; a booster for tetanus, diphtheria and acellular pertussiss; and one dose of the meningococcal vaccine, to protect against bacterial meningitis.
The new requirements sent parents scrambling to have their children vaccinated before the first day of school. School officials had alerted parents that their children might not be able to attend school without the required shots.