Region Urges Families: Vaccinate Children to Prevent School Suspensions

As the school year continues to trek forward through the beginning of 2026, Region of Waterloo Public Health is reminding families to stay up-to-date on their children’s vaccinations or risk the potential of school suspensions. It comes following a wave of suspensions last year, where 920 high school students and 1,624 elementary students were not permitted in class due to out-of-date vaccination records. “Region of Waterloo Public Health is working to keep our school communities safe from vaccine-preventable diseases with the annual enforcement of the Immunization of School Pupils Act (ISPA),” said Public Health in a statement. “Public Health began notifying families with missing or out-of-date records in October 2025.” The ISPA requires all elementary and secondary school students to have proof of vaccination for nine total diseases or a valid exemption filed through Public Health. Those diseases include measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, tetanus, polio, meningococcal, pertussis (whooping cough) and varicella (chickenpox). “Vaccination protects us from serious and preventable diseases,” said Dr. Hsiu-Li Wang, Medical Officer of Health. “The enforcement of the ISPA protects our schools and community. As we saw with the measles outbreak last year, it also helps Public Health to respond quickly to outbreaks with up-to-date information to mitigate the spread of disease.” Public Health has said that it’s already begun to send out reminder notices to families who have fallen behind on their vaccinations, with the full requests for vaccination record notices expected to be sent out to families by Jan. 23. This year, though, there are some changes public health will be rolling out in its reporting, changing the dates and process between high school and elementary students. “In previous years, we worked with elementary school students first,” said David Aoki, Director of Infectious Disease and Chief Nursing Officer. “However, this is generally the largest cohort of students we see with outdated records. Moving elementary school students later in the reporting period gives families more time to work with their health care provider and Public Health to ensure their child has the vaccines that they need and their records are reported.” Dates for secondary school students: Request for vaccination record notices were mailed to families on December 10, 2025. Deadline to submit vaccine records is April 6, 2026, at 4:30 p.m. Public Health will process and update vaccine records on April 7, 2026. Schools will receive final suspension lists on April 8, 2026. Suspensions will take effect on April 9, 2026. Dates for elementary school students: Request for vaccination record notices will be mailed to families starting January 23, 2026. Deadline to submit vaccine records is May 4, 2026, at 4:30 p.m. Public Health will process and update vaccine records on May 5, 2026. Schools will receive final suspension lists on May 6, 2026. Suspensions will take effect on May 7, 2026. It said that it’s also added a day of processing time between the deadline to submit records and the suspension day itself, allowing schools to be provided with finalized suspension lists the day before those families would be impacted.