How many kids are vaccinated at your Broward school? Check the rates here
About 90% of the more than 250,000 Broward students who attend a public or district-managed charter school are fully vaccinated with the mandatory shots needed to attend class this year. However, most schools fell short on meeting the state’s vaccination goal.
The vaccination rate at a majority of Broward County Public Schools lags behind the 95% threshold public health experts say is needed to prevent and reduce the risk of outbreaks for diseases, including polio, measles, Hepatitis B, chickenpox, and whooping cough.
In fact, only 52 locations, or nearly 16%, met or exceeded the vaccination goal, according to a Miami Herald analysis data showing how many students in Broward’s school district are considered to be fully vaccinated for the 2023-2024 school year.
It’s worth noting that the district’s data, which the Herald obtained through a public record request, includes the vaccination rate for 331 locations or programs, including the district’s 326 schools, which includes technical colleges, as well as virtual school and other programs, like homeschooling, substance abuse, detention and migrant programs.
“[T]hose schools with less than 95% of children vaccinated are at higher risks of an outbreak, and the situation has to be addressed in those schools,” Dr. Mary Jo Trepka, an epidemiologist at Florida International University, who reviewed the data for the Herald, wrote in an email. “The majority of schools in Broward have less than 95% of their students vaccinated and that is too low to prevent outbreaks” of vaccine-preventable diseases.
Most recently, seven students fell ill with measles in February during an outbreak at Manatee Bay Elementary in Weston. On Friday, state and school officials officially declared the measles outbreak over, noting that the “21-day infectious period at the school ended on March 7.”
READ MORE: How quickly could measles outbreak spread? Here’s what ‘worst-case scenario’ looks like
Check your Broward school’s vaccination rate
In Florida, kids are required to get certain age-appropriate vaccines to attend K-12 school, though some children can avoid the shots for medical or religious reasons. About 3% of students in the district have a permanent medical or religious exemption, though that number jumps to nearly 9% when students with temporary medical exemptions are included, the data shows. Students with temporary medical exemptions are missing one or more of the required school vaccines and were given a deadline to complete their vaccinations.
So, how many kids are vaccinated at your child’s Broward school? Search for your child’s public or district-managed charter school below. Keep in mind that more students may have been vaccinated since this data was collected.
