A Rapid City education official reminds parents of incoming sixth graders about two required vaccinations.
State law requires sixth graders to receive the meningococcal MC4 vaccine and the Tetanus, Diptheria, Petrussis vaccine, or T-Dap.
Katy Urban is the community relations manager with the Rapid City Area Schools. She says the law was passed in 20-16, and that many students in the district arrived at school last year without the immunizations.
"Last year, we had an alarming number of our sixth graders who were not vaccinated, about 90 percent started out the school year without that vaccination. And so, our school nurses worked really hard with families to get them the resources and the information they needed to get their kids immunized, but we still struggled a lot last year getting compliance. And so, this year, we decided to reach out to regional health to see if they could help us," Urban says.
Urban says Regional Health will set up booths at middle school open houses where Rapid City parents or guardians can receive information about when and where the vaccines are available.
Patients with Medicaid, I-H-S, or no insurance only have to pay a small administrative fee to get the vaccines. Urban says in some cases this fee can be waived.
The first day of school in Rapid City is August 30th.