Empowered Homefront

Your choices

The law allows each choice below. Read what each one covers.

An exemption is a paper that says a shot rule does not apply to this person.

Before you decide: what each shot is for, and your rights

Choice 1. Religious exemption
The state says
A religious exemption is a form you sign each year.It says you hold religious beliefs against shots.It also says you have read the Department of Health's information.The parent or guardian signs it.Or the student signs, if 18 or older.No notary is needed.You must redo it every year on that year's form.
You do
1.Download this school year's "Religious Immunization Exemption" form.2.Read the health material.3.Sign it.4.Give it to the school or child care.
The paper
Religious Immunization Exemption form for child care and schools, from the Vermont Department of Health, this school year's version. The state publishes the form. It has to be written again every year. Open the form
Source. legislature.vermont.gov, healthvermont.gov
Get the state form
Choice 2. The shot record
You do
1.Ask the doctor's office or the health department for a copy.2.Put one copy for each student in your folder.
The paper
The shot record from the doctor's office or the health department.
Choice 3. Medical exemption
The state says
A medical exemption lets a person stay in school or child care without a shot.A licensed provider must write it.It must be one who can prescribe vaccines.The provider writes that the shot is or may be harmful to the person's health.The provider also writes how long that will likely last.A person may also have up to six months while still getting the shots.
You do
1.Ask the provider to fill out and sign the "Medical Immunization Exemption" form. It lists the shots and how long.2.Give it to the school or child care.
The paper
Medical Immunization Exemption form for child care and schools, from the Vermont Department of Health. The state publishes the form. How long it lasts: Lasts as long as the provider writes on the form. Open the form

Everywhere in America

Where a shot record actually gets asked for, and where it does not.

School enrollment: Enrolling a child in a school, public, private or religious, means handing that school an immunization certificate or an exemption, because each state writes its own school rule.
Licensed daycare and preschool: A state's school rule usually reaches licensed child care too, and the word that decides it is licensed. A drop in nursery or a parents day out below the licensing line is usually outside it.
Club and recreation sports: A club asks for age, fees and a sports physical. The playing rules US Youth Soccer publishes carry no immunization condition, and neither do Little League's published eligibility rules. A shot rule turns up when the venue does it: a school gym, a hospital, a licensed camp.
Scouting: Scouting America's annual health form asks for a tetanus shot within the last 10 years, and Scouting America publishes an immunization exemption request form for families who decline.
Summer camp: A camp accredited by the American Camp Association has to collect a health history from every camper, and the association's own guidance says a signed refusal counts as the record.
Dual enrollment: A community college course, and coursework taken online, often sits outside a state's college immunization law. North Carolina and Texas both write that exclusion into their own statutes.
Living on campus: Both of those statutes are written around the student who is on campus full time, so the moment to plan for is the first full time semester on a campus.
Enlisting: Nobody is turned away from enlistment for being unvaccinated. Recruits are immunized by the military in their first days of basic training.
Healthcare training: A nursing or allied health student can be admitted to the program and still be blocked from the clinical hours, because the clinical site, not the college, decides which exemptions it accepts.
Travel abroad: Some countries ask for proof of yellow fever vaccination on an international certificate before letting a traveler in. A doctor can write a medical waiver on that certificate, and the destination country may or may not accept it.

State Setup & Compliance

Vermont

Your choices

Choice 1. Religious exemption

Choice 2. The shot record

Choice 3. Medical exemption

Good to know