Required vaccines for school in NY: Which ones are needed, and are there exemptions?

Back-to-school vaccine season in New York has changed in recent years, underscoring the importance of staying updated on the latest requirements and guidelines in 2024.

Much of the upheaval came after lawmakers repealed religious or nonmedical school vaccine exemptions in 2019 , which impacted about 26,000 unvaccinated kids, or 1% of schoolchildren at the time.

That repeal also seemingly inspired new school vaccine schemes. Authorities this year busted several New York health providers for providing falsified school vaccine records for thousands of kids amid an ongoing crackdown on the fraud.

At the same time, researchers are exploring how many parents chose to homeschool or move out of New York instead of getting their kids vaccinated. One recent study suggested one third of schools across upstate may have lost some students due to the nonmedical exemption repeal.

Still, New York was among just nine states that didn’t face a pandemic-era rise in school vaccine exemption rates, reinforcing the fact repealing nonmedical exemptions helped improve overall school vaccination rates in New York, federal data show.

Here’s what you should know about school vaccines in New York, including which vaccinations kids need to get and expert tips on flu and COVID-19 shots, which are recommended but not required for students.

Which vaccines are required for schools in NY?

Among the vaccines required in 2024 to attend day care, pre-K and kindergarten school attendance:

• Diphtheria and Tetanus toxoid-containing vaccine and Pertussis vaccine (DTaP or Tdap)
• Hepatitis B vaccine
• Measles, Mumps and Rubella vaccine (MMR)
• Polio vaccine
• Varicella (Chickenpox) vaccine

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Additional vaccines required for middle school and high school:

• Tdap vaccine for Grades 6-12
• Meningococcal conjugate vaccine (MenACWY) for Grades 7-12
• Students in Grade 12 need an additional booster dose of MenACWY on or after their 16th birthday

Additional vaccines required for day care and pre-K:

• Haemophilus influenzae type b conjugate vaccine (HiB)
• Pneumococcal Conjugate vaccine (PCV)

What is the deadline for getting school vaccines?

Within 14 days of the first day of school or day care, parents must:

• Show proof of their child's up-to-date vaccinations, or
• Provide a valid medical exemption from vaccination.

In order to attend or remain in school or day care, children who are unvaccinated or overdue must receive at least the first dose of all required vaccines within the first 14 days, health officials noted. They also must receive subsequent vaccines in the series within a 14-day period of when they are due to complete the immunization series.

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How to get school vaccines in NY

While many health plans cover the cost of school vaccines, officials urge New Yorkers to check with their health insurance provider about potential costs before getting shots.

The federally-funded Vaccines for Children Program also provides vaccines at no cost to eligible children who are uninsured or underinsured. For more details about that program, call 1-800-543-7468 or email: nyvfc@health.ny.gov .

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When to get flu, new COVID vaccines for kids in 2024?

Experts recommend getting annual flu and COVID-19 vaccines together in October for winter protection.

Health officials recommended everyone ages six months and older get the updated 2024-25 COVID-19 vaccine, which will target variants currently spreading and is expected to be released in September.

But health officials have struggled to convince New Yorkers to get children vaccinated against COVID-19, as only about 98,000, or 4% of, children under age 19 received the updated COVID-19 vaccine released last fall, state data show.

Are school vaccine exemptions rising in the U.S.?

School vaccine coverage nationally remained near 93% during the 2022-23 school year, while the exemption rate increased fractionally to 3%, the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control reported in November.

Exemptions increased in 41 states, with the rate exceeding 5% in 10 states, CDC noted, adding any rates above 5% increases the risk for outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases.

In New York, the number of exemptions held flat in the CDC study, involving only a fraction of schoolkids statewide. The vaccination rate among kindergartners was about 97%, the study reported.

School vaccine coverage overall in New York, excluding New York City, increased about 5.5% in private schools and 1% in public schools due to the repeal of nonmedical exemptions in 2019, according to a study earlier this year co-authored by Margaret Doll, an associate professor of epidemiology at Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences.

Research into the number of parents who pulled kids from New York schools due to the repeal remained ongoing, said Doll, who also co-authored the study that revealed one third of upstate schools may have experienced enrollment changes due to the repeal.

How many deaths do childhood vaccines prevent?

The Vaccines for Children program established in 1994 will prevent 1.13 million deaths, 32 million hospitalizations and 508 million illnesses, according to a study the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published last week.

The program has cost $268 billion but the savings will amount to $2.9 trillion, the study said. Put another way: For every dollar spent on vaccines, the country will net $11 in savings.

Eduardo Cuevas of USA TODAY contributed reporting .

David Robinson is the New York State Team health care reporter for the USA TODAY Network. His more than 15-year investigative reporting career has included awards for coverage of the opioid epidemic, hospital and nursing home abuses, health inequality, COVID-19 and emergency response failures.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Required vaccines for school in NY: Which ones are needed, and are there exemptions?