Resources: Student Health

Student Health

Fair School Funding

  • Faced with a budget shortfall of more than $700 million, the School District of Philadelphia laid off 47 nurses effective December 31, 2011. Subsequent layoffs and the retirement of 25 additional nurses resulted in a net loss of more than 100 school nurses in the 2011-2012 school year.

    This 2013 report examines the impact of those losses on student health, safety, and learning.

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Student Health

Equal Access

  • The Pennsylvania Department of Health’s immunization regulations require parents or guardians of students enrolled in grades K-12 to have their children immunized against various diseases in order to protect the health and safety of all students. ELC has compiled a fact sheet to help families navigate these requirements.

    Please note – this document is available in Spanish.

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  • Learn about Section 504 plans. Read here.

    Please note – this document is available in Spanish.

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  • Submitted to the Pennsylvania State Board of Education in March, 2016, this testimony from ELC Senior Staff Attorney Maura McInerney responds to proposed revisions to Chapter 11 of the Public School Code. She suggests an amendment to §11.20 that would allow the immediate enrollment of children experiencing homelessness and children currently in foster care, with immunization records to be provided following that enrollment.

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  • The lead poisoning crisis in Flint, Michigan has shined a light on a persistent, yet often invisible, problem in Pennsylvania. While many think of lead as an issue of the past, it is not. For many of Pennsylvania’s children, lead exposure continues to be a silent epidemic that plagues their communities and undermines their ability to learn. This brief, “Lead and Its Impact on Learning: What Schools, Parents & Policymakers Need to Know and Do,” written by Maura McInerney, Esq. and Alissa S. Werzen, M.D., was published February 11, 2016.

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Student Health

School to Prison Pipeline