An online newsletter produced by EdSource

with support from The California Endowment

Sept. 19, 2015
Issue 38

Student Health

Updated: What schools and parents need to know about the new vaccination law

Credit: John C. Osborn/ EdSource Today

This fall, school nurses, staff members and families of unvaccinated students have been working their way through upcoming changes in school immunization requirements under the new state law, known as Senate Bill 277.

As of Jan. 1, 2016, the law ends personal belief exemptions to vaccinations, a move that affects students statewide. In 2014-15, 47 out of 58 California counties had a total of 13,500 kindergarteners with personal belief exemptions.

EdSource Today has updated our Frequently Asked Questions about the law, including adding new information from the California Department of Public Health about 7th grade vaccination requirements for students who have not been fully immunized. According to the department, previously unvaccinated students entering 7th grade as of July 1, 2016 must provide documentation of all vaccines needed for school entry based on age. These include a polio series, a diphtheria/tetanus/pertussis series, the varicella vaccine and two doses of MMR.

Read more at EdSource Today.

Attendance

Chronic student absentee rate remains high, but tracking improves

Attendance reflects student health - physical, emotional and behavioral - and for several years, California Attorney General Kamala Harris has declared chronic absenteeism an urgent problem affecting student achievement, dropout rates and crime.

This week, Harris released new statewide attendance data. Elementary school absenteeism remains "persistently high" in California, but more schools are tracking absences and working to address the root problems that keep students out of classrooms, she said.

Read more at EdSource Today.

School Lunch

Time to eat and helpful cafeteria signs for healthy choices

Study finds students eat more fruit with 25 minutes for lunch

Signs help students with school lunch requirements and choices

Students who are rushed for time at lunch are less likely to choose fruit and more likely to eat less of everything, according to a study published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Students with less than 20 minutes to eat consumed 13 percent less of their entr�e, 10 percent less of their milk and 12 percent less of their vegetable, compared with students who had at least 25 minutes to eat, the study found.

Colorful signs that use graphic illustrations can help students, particularly younger children, know what to put on their lunch trays, according to school lunch blogger Dana Woldow. Signs can let students know that while they must take three out of five items offered as part of the National School Lunch Program, they are welcome to take all five items -- protein, grain, fruit, vegetable and milk.

School Nursing

Should school nurses stock an antidote to heroin overdoses?

Amid increasing concern from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about the use of heroin and prescription pain medication among young people, school nurses in Rhode Island, New York, Massachusetts and Delaware are stocking naloxone. The drug is an antidote that has been show to restore breathing to a person experiencing an overdose of heroin, codeine, morphine and oxycodon and other opiod pain killers.

The National Association of School Nurses in June endorsed access to naloxone for school nurses.

Read more from National Public Radio.

Special Education

Transportation company under scrutiny after autistic student found dead on bus

Photo of student Paul Lee posted on the family's GoFundMe.com website.

Officials of the Pupil Transportation Cooperative, a collective that serves seven school districts in Southeast Los Angeles County, will upgrade its safety procedures after a nonverbal, autistic student was found dead on a school bus on Sept. 11, according to the Whittier Times.

The Whittier student, Hun Joon "Paul" Lee, 19, was found unresponsive on the bus parked at a Whittier Union High School District parking lot after his mother called police to find out why her son hadn't come home after school. The substitute driver had declared the bus "all clear" and empty of students and the company said it does not know how the student was overlooked, Pupil Transportation Cooperative spokesman Tom DeLapp told the Whittier Times.

"It was a disastrous event that is going to live on in the memory of this organization for a long period of time," DeLapp said.

Effective Strategies to Reduce Suspensions

From zero tolerance to zero suspensions

Hear from Prinicipal Ramiro Rubalcaba of Azusa Unified School District in this previously recorded webinar about how two urban high schools in California committed to changing school culture and took suspensions off the quick fix menu.

In place of suspensions, the schools and staff implemented School-Wide Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports and committed to prevention and intervention.

Click here to view.