Student suspensions begin as Toronto Public Health cracks down on immunization requirements

More than 10,000 pupils could be suspended for up to 20 days.

More than 10,000 high school students in Toronto who have not received their legally mandated vaccinations or who have not submitted a valid exemption could be suspended for up to 20 days.

On Tuesday, Toronto Public Health (TPH) started issuing active suspension orders to affected public secondary students in Grade 11 who were in born in 2008.

According to Ontario’s Immunization of School Pupils Act (ISPA), students must be vaccinated against nine vaccine-preventable diseases – diphtheria, tetanus, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, meningococcal disease, pertussis (whooping cough) and varicella (also known as chickenpox, if born in 2010 or later) – or must have a valid exemption on file.

The city’s health unit said the first round of suspensions impacts pupils at 21 schools. It noted that of those 1,355 students, 70 per cent, or 957 of them, were initially not up to-date with the vaccination requirements and received an initial letter from TPH. A month later, more than half of them – 58 per cent – were compliant.

On Feb. 24, TPH said it began emailing out suspension orders to the remaining 574 pupils. On Tuesday, 173 of them were suspended, the health unit said.

Toronto Public Health said this process is ongoing and suspensions will roll out until May.

“If these requirements are not met, the student can be suspended from school for up to 20 days,” Associate Medical Officer of Health Dr. Vinita Dubey said in a written statement to CP24, adding that current Grade 11 students tend to have lower vaccination rates as they “missed school-based vaccination opportunities in Grade 7 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.”

The suspensions come as TPH undertakes a review of immunization records for Grade 11 students born in 2008 in the city’s public secondary schools.

They also come as Ontario contends with an outbreak of measles, which so far has infected 661 people in Ontario, mainly unvaccinated children. Measles is one of the most contagious diseases and requires vaccination coverage of about 95 per cent.

• Thousands of Hamilton students suspended for out-of-date or missing vaccination records

Last fall, Toronto Public Health unit began assessing the immunization records of 24,678 students and found that only 26 per cent were initially up to date with their required vaccinations.

Letters were then sent to 18,320 students and their families whose records were incomplete and by Feb. 24, that number had improved to 59 per cent being up to date.

Suspension orders are now in the process of being issued to 10,157 students who are still not compliant with the legislation, TPH said.

In order to return to school, students who have been suspended must either submit their records to TPH, get the vaccinated, or complete a valid exemption.

“Toronto Public Health’s goal is to help students catch up on their vaccinations and avoid missing school, and it continues to offer support to improve immunization coverage across the city,” the health unit said, adding that by the end of this assessment process, it anticipates compliance will exceed 90 per cent, which is “consistent with assessments of cohorts from previous years.”

In Ottawa, the public health unit issued roughly 15,000 notices of incomplete immunization records to students in mid-January. Suspensions are set to ale place from March to May.

Over in Waterloo, more than 1,600 students were suspended last week.

With files from The Canadian Press