Back-to-school means flu shots for the kids, and many schools have already sent out vaccinations forms for parents. But some Austin parents are concerned after reading a checklist from the Austin Independent School District.
They said the language used sends out the wrong message.
Dr. Katy O'Brien has a son who attends an AISD elementary school, she said she doesn't mind services offered for in-school flu shots but has a problem with verbiage for parents who want to opt out.
“Yes, I want to help to protect my family and community by flu by allowing my child to receive the flu vaccine! Exclamation,” O’Brien said.
The other box read:
“No, I DO NOT...in caps.. wish to help protect my child and community by allowing my child to participate...reason,” O’Brien said.
Dr. O'Brien and several other parents feel the verbiage backs parents into a corner.
“The word protect...I think it puts a lot of weight on the parents,” Lily Lozada said.
New mom Crystal Suarez agrees.
“It kind of comes off like one of those advertisements, 'no, I do not wish to save money today,'” Suarez said. “The kind of tone we are getting from this is, shame on you, you don't want to get your kid vaccinated."
Parents said words are powerful and can have a huge impact on people's actions.
“It implies that they have an agenda, they want to push or bully everyone into a vaccine,” O’Brien said.
For other parents, it's not a big deal.
“Sensitivity wise it could have been better stated. But from the perspective whether or not you are going to vaccinate children, I don’t have a problem with,” Jason Lozada said. "I kind of view it as business, it’s not personal.”
Healthy Schools Texas collaborated with the district along with E3 Alliance in this latest form and sent this statement:
We at Healthy Schools in partnership with local districts and E3 alliance for the past 3 years have been providing immunization services to students at no cost to AISD or families.
Every year we try to communicate through our literature (parent letter and consent) how the program works and the importance of receiving an annual flu vaccine.
It was brought to our attention that one sentence at the bottom of our consent form offended some parents who received the form. Obviously, it was never our intention to offend anyone and we respect and take their concerns very seriously.
As we do every year we will review all of our literature and take into account all feedback both positive and negative from district partner, parents, and people in the community and use it as an opportunity to communicate even more effectively next year.
AISD statement:
The seasonal flu shot vaccine consent form that was sent to parents this week was a collaboration with E3 Alliance and Healthy Schools. We understand that the language was concerning to some of our families and respect parents’ decisions in whether to fill out and return the form in this optional program.
We are sending communications to principals to remind our families that participation is optional.
For Dr. O’Brien, the solution is simple.
“Just re-work this form for next time where it says, 'yes, please or no, thank you,'” O’Brien said.