Elementary and secondary school students who have not received the required shots to attend school have less than one week to do so before they face being turned away from classes.

The emergency extension granted by the Texas Department of State Health Services for children to get meningococcal, tetanus diphtheria and acelluar pertussis (Tdap) and varicella (chickenpox) immunizations ends at the end of this month.

State officials extended the deadline after many health care centers reported having a shortage of the vaccines. Under the extension, children were granted provisional enrollment in schools until Sept. 30. The extension generally affected students in kindergarten and seventh grade.

In March, the state health department announced that starting Aug. 1 students would need shots for hepatitis A; measles, mumps and rubella (MMR); meningococcal disease; Tdap and varicella to attend school.

Theresa Grant, Denton school district director of health services, said that she’s sure there are some students at every campus who are still working to catch up on their immunizations.

Nurses have an idea of whom those students are at the campus level, she said. However, the district will not know exactly how many students don’t have the required shots until late October.

Grant said that campus nurses have worked on updating parents about the required immunizations since April. As the deadline approaches, she said, the district continues to work closely with families that are not in compliance to ensure that children get the shots.

“The more students who are fully immunized, the fewer the students we have exposed to disease,” Grant said.

Generally, she said, by mid-October about 99 percent of students have the necessary shots, and she expects that to be the case this year.

Grant said that almost year-round there are students who are due for immunizations and campus nurses monitor those cases monthly.

In August, at the time of the first immunization deadline, school officials in Argyle, Aubrey, Krum, Lake Dallas, Pilot Point and Sanger all reported having no issues with students being out of compliance with the new law.

Ponder school officials said Wednesday that prior to the extension the district was “very close” to having all students in compliance and expected to have the few students not in compliance immunized by the Sept. 30 deadline.

Dr. Bing Burton, Denton County health director, said there was an influx of students who got immunized around the time of the state’s first deadline.

In August the health department generally sees about 5,000 people for shots, but 6,400 received immunizations this year, he said.

Long lines, crowded waiting rooms and lengthy waits of an hour or more persisted at the department until two days after school started, Burton said, but since then fewer students have needed shots.

“We’re not seeing large numbers of kids needing back-to-school shots,” Burton said. “I think we got most of those. Some facilities had to turn them away. We did not turn anybody away, so I’m not expecting large groups of kids.”

BRITNEY TABOR can be reached at 940-566-6876. Her e-mail address is btabor@dentonrc.com .