MIDDLEBURY — Several parents of Middlebury Community Schools students voiced their disagreement Thursday night with how state and county health officials responded to a chicken pox outbreak.

The school system reported 13 cases of chicken pox among students since mid-November. According to the Elkhart County Health Department, in consultation with the Indiana State Department of Health, that qualifies as an outbreak. The county health department instructed the school system that unvaccinated students may not attend school until three weeks after the last reported case.

Clinics were offered in each school Thursday morning to vaccinate students. Dr. Dan Nafziger, Elkhart County’s health officer, said 306 students and staff members were vaccinated. After the clinics, Middlebury Superintendent Jim Conner said 53 students in the district have not yet been vaccinated.

Conner said he knows several parents are frustrated with the health department’s response, calling it an act of “Big Brother.”

Some Middlebury parents went to Thursday night’s Elkhart County Board of Health monthly meeting to express their disapproval with the health department’s action.

Mike Boval, who said his children are not vaccinated because of religious beliefs, said he’s concerned that some students might miss so much school that they can’t proceed to the next grade. Andrea Boval said she wants her children to contract chicken pox when they’re young so they don’t get it when they’re adults. “I wanted to expose them to it the natural way,” she said.

Nafziger said his goal is not to maximize school attendance but to stop the outbreak as quickly as possible. He added that he’s not aware of any instances in other school corporations in which procedures for dealing with outbreaks resulted in any students not advancing to the next grade.

Brian Stutzman, founder of Abundant Life Ministries, said he has four children in Middlebury schools, and the two youngest have chicken pox now. He said that it’s not right for governmental units to take decisions away from parents. “These decisions are highly important and do affect many lives,” he said.

Caryn Howell said her concern is that some school buildings are being affected even though students in those buildings don’t have chicken pox, along with “the manner in which the civil liberties were taken so lightly.”

Nafziger said, “This virus is spread through the air,” and people in the same airspace as an infected person can become infected as a result. Children from different school buildings may share airspace on buses going to and from school, he noted.

Howell countered that some students don’t share buses with students from other schools.

The health department’s response is designed to be decisive enough to “have it wrapped up before Christmas vacation is over,” Nafziger said, referring to the outbreak. “The time to stop it is now, not drag it out.”

According to the State Department of Health’s website, children must be vaccinated before entering school and again before the sixth grade. Parents who do not want their children immunized for religious reasons must provide a written objection to the school each year the student is enrolled.

Nafziger has said that he respects parents’ right to not vaccinate their children, but that not vaccinating puts them and other children at risk.

In Middlebury, children not vaccinated for chicken pox must miss not only classes, but extracurricular activities as well, Conner said.

That means music programs, sporting events, the high school’s annual holiday dance and other events.

As for school work, Conner said students still will be expected to do homework.

Students will work from home, he said, exchanging notes and assignments with teachers via the Internet or personal delivery.

Truth Reporter Zina Kumok contributed to this story.

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