By Ann Schimke, Chalkbeat
How many kindergartners are vaccinated against measles at your son’s school? How many are vaccinated against whooping cough at your daughter’s child care center?
These are the kinds of questions parents can answer quickly using a state database created by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. The database lets users search vaccination and exemption rates for child care centers, schools, and colleges statewide, and look at trends over time.
State health officials say the database can help parents make informed decisions about where to send their children to school or child care.
Heather Roth, immunization branch chief for the health department, said the state’s goal is for at least 95% of students in a school to have all required vaccinations. In Colorado, kindergarten entry requires five immunizations — each administered in multiple doses. They protect against nine illnesses, including polio, measles, chicken pox, and pertussis — commonly called whooping cough.
Roth said the MMR vaccine, which protects against measles, mumps, and rubella, has been the focus of a recent text, email, and postcard campaign reminding parents to get their children up to date on that shot.
Statewide, 93.7% of students in pre-K-12 had the MMR vaccine last year, down from 95.1% in 2020-21.
“Our rates among our kindergarten age population in Colorado have been lower than what we’d like them to be historically,” she said.
After reminder efforts in April and June, more than 12,000 children got the MMR vaccine.
MMR vaccination rates vary widely by school, with some at 100% and others below 70%. In Colorado, parents are allowed to seek an exemption from vaccinations because of religious or personal beliefs, though schools with low vaccination rates don’t necessarily have large numbers of students with exemptions. Instead, families may be behind on required vaccinations or schools haven’t followed up to collect vaccination paperwork.
Roth said measles is highly contagious and noted the virus can hang in the air for two hours after an infected person has left the room. Measles was declared eliminated in the U.S. in 2000 but has cropped up again. Currently there’s a measles outbreak in Oregon, one of more than a dozen outbreaks around the country in 2024.
In addition to the school-by-school search function, the state’s vaccination database provides a color-coded map showing vaccination rates by school district. A dozen school districts that have relatively low vaccination rates, most small and rural, show up as red or orange.
Another nine show up as purple because they submitted no vaccination data last year. They include Bethune, Cotopaxi, Estes Park, Frenchman, Hi-Plains, Karval, Lone Star, Springfield, and Salida. Users searching for vaccination rates for these districts will instead see data from a previous year, usually 2022-23.
Families can find medical providers with free or low-cost childhood vaccinations using the state’s Vaccines For Children map. The state provides additional vaccination information, including resources about flu and COVID vaccines, on its Get Vaccinated page.
Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at [email protected].
This article was originally published in Chalkbeat, which is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.
