Section 9: Student Health Requirements

Table of Contents

School nurses serve as a critical partner in ensuring students are healthy and ready to learn. When students are identified who may have barriers to learning, it is important to link students and their parents or guardians with available services to provide the best opportunity for the student to succeed. In Iowa, there are four health screening programs regulated by the state and implemented by the schools: immunization, dental, vision and blood lead.

Enrollment Requirements

Parents are required to provide the required records for enrollment to meet state law(s).

School Nurse Follow Up

The most reasonable number of attempts school nurses and school health personnel should make when communicating with parents or guardians regarding the collection of results for the required four health screenings:

Immunization

An approved record must be on file with the school on the first day for the child to attend.

Schools are required in accordance with Iowa Code section 256.7, subsection 15 (2025 Iowa Acts, chapter 106 (House File 299)) and corresponding Iowa Administrative Rule to communicate with families about approved record options to satisfy enrollment requirements, including immunization, immunization exemptions (medical or religious), or provisional.

Dental

An approved record is required for each newly enrolled kindergarten or ninth grade student.

If evidence of a record is not provided upon enrollment, the school nurse will send one letter requesting submission of an approved record.

If the letter is not received, a follow up phone call attempt should be made if time permits.

Vision

Upon enrollment, if the parent or guardian has not provided evidence of a vision screening, the school nurse should send one letter to the parent/guardian of the student requesting the student’s proof/evidence of a child vision screening. No additional follow-up is required by the school.

Lead

Each school receives an email from Iowa HHS at the beginning of the school year with instructions and a secure spreadsheet. The school provides a list of students enrolled in Kindergarten on the spreadsheet in the specified format by October 31st. Iowa HHS completes a match of the children's names and provides a list back to the schools of children in Kindergarten who may have not received a blood lead test. The school nurse or school health personnel send a letter with contact information to the parent/guardian of children that the department believes have not received a blood lead test. No additional follow-up is required by the school after you have submitted the letters to the students on the HHS return list.

No laboratory records are collected.

English/Translated School Health Screening and Athletic Participation Letters

The Iowa Department of Education partners with TransACT ParentNotices to provide district staff with unlimited access to an online library of professionally written and translated forms and notices to help us comply with federal parent and family communication requirements under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and the Office for Civil Rights (OCR). To access this great resource, the school nurse or any school employee can use the self-onboarding link with their school domain email to register and activate their account at https://parentnotices.com/self-onboard

The letters below are available in various languages listed.