D.C. is delaying enforcement of student vaccine policies for several months, as the city struggles to bring thousands of students into compliance with routine and COVID-19 vaccine mandates.

Under current D.C. law, a student must be fully caught up on required childhood vaccinations to attend school. Under the “no shots, no school” policy being enforced this year, families have 20 days after being notified that they are out of compliance to get their student vaccinated, or that student will be excluded from attending class. Following the passage of a bill by the D.C. Council in 2021, the COVID-19 vaccine for children 12 and up is now included the list of required vaccinations. (Children under 12 are excluded because the Food and Drug Administration has not granted full approval, only emergency use authorization, for their COVID vaccine.)

But now, according to Deputy Mayor for Education Paul Kihn, enforcement of the COVID-19 vaccine mandate won’t begin until January 3, 2023, when students return from the winter break. For routine childhood immunizations like measles, children in pre-K through fifth grade will need to show proof of vaccination by October 11. Grades six through 12 will need to be up-to-date by November 4.  The city’s public school system will be amending the schedule on which it sends out notices of non-compliance. Private and parochial schools will not need to follow the same notification of exclusion timeline, according to Kihn, but by law they are required to enforce the vaccine mandate.

“To reduce the number of students who could be excluded from school at any one time, and to align schools and LEAs [local education agencies] to one unified notification and exclusion timeline, we are implementing staggered enforcement based on grade band,” Kihn wrote to school leaders on Friday. “We have heard from many of you about the challenges of tracking enforcement for COVID-19 vaccinations … We hope that the January 3, 2023 date for first exclusions of non-compliant students will give schools and LEAs additional time to prepare and for students to get their COVID-19 vaccinations.”

The D.C. Council’s bill adding the COVID-19 shot to the list of childhood vaccinations states that the mandate would be enforced at the start of the 2022-2023 school year, but it also allows for a 70-day holding period from the time a COVID immunization is fully approved, to the moment of implementation in schools. The COVID-19 vaccine for 12-15-year-olds was only fully authorized in July, pushing enforcement well into September, and adding a complicating factor for schools and their vaccination data, according to Kihn.

“We want to make sure that we’re only excluding students, of course, based on accurate information so we just need a little bit more time,” he said during a call with reporters on Friday afternoon.

When asked if city officials within the mayor’s office had discussed the change with D.C. councilmembers, who passed the COVID-19 vaccine requirement for students, Kihn said “we are in constant conversation with city council members on lots of topics including this one.” A spokesperson for Chairman Phil Mendelson said that he was in conversations with Kihn as recently as yesterday, but was not aware of any forthcoming changes to the enforcement dates.

For the past several months, city school and health officials have been pushing a campaign to get students up-to-date on their vaccinations. At the beginning of August, more than 25% of students across the city were missing vaccines, or their information was not reported. In the weeks leading up to the first day of school on this coming week, officials have been sending out thousands of mailers, making personalized phone calls, and staging mobile clinics at schools across the city.

According to data from DC Health shared with councilmembers last week, 26% of D.C. public school students are out of compliance with routine childhood vaccinations. For some private and charter school systems, the rates are much higher: 92% of students in Briya Public Charter schools are missing vaccinations. Others like St. Albans School and the Edmund Burke School have 70% and 68% rates of non-compliance, respectively. Schools in Ward 3 have the most students missing vaccines out of any ward, according to the data, with a non-compliance rate of 36%. Wards 7 and 6 have the highest rates of compliance, with 24% students enrolled in schools located in those wards missing vaccines.

The data did not include COVID-19 vaccination rates by school, but city-wide data suggests that compliance rates look similar. As of Friday, 72% of 12-15 year-olds in the city had received two doses of a vaccine, and 76% of children ages 16-17 had completed a two-dose series. (Boosters are not included in the city’s vaccine mandate.)

Kihn said Friday that more accurate rates of vaccination — both for routine shots and the COVID vaccine — will be available next week. Some students may be vaccinated but not have updated information in the system, and families are still submitting updated information as the school year begins and enrollment settles.

At-large Councilmember Christina Henderson, who introduced the bill making the COVID-19 vaccine mandatory, said she is not “in opposition to what the executive is trying to do,” in delaying enforcement, and that she has been in frequent conversations with DC Health, and D.C. school officials about bringing up the dropping routine vaccination rates.

“None of this was ever meant to be punitive,” she says. “It was always about, how do we protect the school community enough to keep kids in school.”

The change comes shortly after a judge struck down the city’s vaccination mandate for city employees on Thursday — meaning D.C. public schools teachers and staff are no longer required to be vaccinated against COVID. Kihn said the deputy mayor’s office is still “working through” the implications of the ruling.

“I think members of school communities, including staff, are eager to ensure that we use the best tool available, which is vaccination, to keep our community safe,” he said. “At this time, that’s our current approach.”

The first day of DCPS classes is Monday.

This post has been updated with a statement from Councilmember Christina Henderson. 

Previously: 
As The School Year Looms, D.C. Scrambles To Get Students Caught Up On Routine Vaccinations
More Than One Quarter Of D.C. Students Are Missing Routine Childhood Vaccines
D.C. Renews Push To Get Kids Routine Vaccinations Ahead Of Next School Year