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The Juneau School District retracted its plan to wait a few days before enforcing new state immunization requirements at the start of school.

An administrator had said officials would wait until Wednesday to consider sending children home, but spokeswoman Kristin Bartlett said Thursday that kids could be sent home on the first day of school if nurses determine children are not in compliance.

"We do not want to turn kids away on their first day or their first week, but we do have to comply with the state regulation," Bartlett said.

The state is requiring that children in kindergarten through sixth grade have two chickenpox vaccinations. It is the first year the state has required immunizations for the virus.

Local schools do not have complete records for hundreds of students who are set to start school next week.

Classes for first through 12th grade start Monday, and kindergarten starts Thursday.

Local clinics and doctor's offices were busy Thursday with parents trying to collect records or get their children immunized.

Valley Medical Care did not have any appointment openings today, the last business day before the start of school, head nurse Wilma Cooper said.

"It's kind of been the last minute, 'Oh my goodness, my child needs a vaccine'" type of calls and appointments, Cooper said.

Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium and Juneau Public Health Center each added two clinics to help meet high demand for the chickenpox vaccination.

Parents did procrastinate, but part of the problem has been difficulty getting the vaccine, SEARHC nursing administrator Sara Ling said.

"We put in an order last week and just received it today," Ling said. "It's been a struggle for the state, not just Juneau."

Several clinics reported borrowing vaccines from local doctor's offices or the public health center while waiting for orders to arrive.

Ling said SEARHC waited until it confirmed the delivery of its vaccines before scheduling today's extra clinics.

"This whole thing has just been amazingly not on parent's radar," said Kate Slotnick, nurse manager at Juneau Public Health Center.

Some might not have realized the new state requirements meant they needed to do something for their child before school starts, she said.

Slotnick suggested parents dig out their child's immunization records, review them and provide copies to their child's school. If the records show only one chickenpox vaccination or none, parents should contact their pediatrician to see if their personal records are up to date, she said.

The medical term for chickenpox is varicella, which is likely the term used on records, Slotnick said, adding that if a child has not been vaccinated, or has had only one vaccination, the parent should set an appointment.

The school district expects a lot of students to show up for school with immunization paperwork in their backpacks or hands, causing a backlog that will take time for district nurses to review, Bartlett said.

She could not say how long that might take, but anticipated some children could be sent home Monday.

"We don't want to turn kids away just because we had to go through records," she said. "But the bottom line is that they have to have those vaccinations to attend school. So if they haven't had them, the parents will have to pick them up and get the vaccination."

The district started informing parents about the new requirements before school let out in the spring. Letters were sent to families and the new requirements were publicized in back-to-school advertising and school newsletters.

• Contact reporter Kim Marquis at 523-2279 or kim.marquis@juneauempire.com.