Rockland's parents sue health department to ban unvaccinated children

A group of parents from Rockland County filed a federal complaint to have their children brought back to school.

Parents from a Chestnut Ridge school will be appearing today in federal court in White Plains to plead their case against the Rockland County Health Department and its Commissioner. They say that their children can not go to school because they have not been vaccinated against the measles virus.

A group of students from the Green Meadow Waldorf School in Chestnut Ridge has not been allowed in class since December.
"We have been mandated to exclude our unvaccinated or under-vaccinated students," said TreAnne Mcenery, a director at Green Meadow Waldorf School.

The mandate was given to the Rockland County Health Department as health officials tried to end a measles epidemic that has now infected 145 people.
School administrators say they have done everything they can to ensure that students who are not allowed in class are informed about their schoolwork. They say that just under 20% of their students are coming out of class and have been out for more than three months.

"In better days, they would be in school, they would learn with their peers and it would be great, but we have a deadly epidemic," said Rockland County attorney Tom Humbach.

But a group of 20 parents are now suing Rockland County to allow their unvaccinated children to return to school. Part of their complaint states that "there is no evidence that children and their families who dispute this exclusion order are in contact with those who carry the measles virus" .