Meeting physical, immunization requirements key to healthy school year

Published 3:11 pm Thursday, August 6, 2026

QUINCY — Heading into the 2026-27 year, Quincy Public Schools Nursing Director Brandy Kirby has one goal in mind.

“We would love to have a healthy school year for everybody, keeping everybody in school, healthy, and learning,” Kirby said.

Key will be students and families meeting school health requirements for immunizations, lead testing, physicals, and dental exams.

Requirements include:

—Lead testing, up-to-date immunizations, a physical, and a dental exam for students at the Early Childhood and Family Center.
—Up-to-date immunizations, a physical, and a dental exam for incoming kindergartners.
—Dental exams for second-grade students.
—Immunizations, a physical, and a dental exam for sixth graders.
—A physical and dental exam for ninth graders.
—Up-to-date immunizations for 12th graders.
—Immunizations and the exams for any students new to Illinois.

Early childhood students must meet the requirements by the first day of school. The deadline for other grades is Oct. 15, and those not meeting the requirements will be excluded from school.

Required health forms are available online at qps.org/departments/nursing/forms/ and from doctors’ and dentists’ offices.

Students with health needs during the school day need to provide school nurses with new medication orders and new medicines for the 2026-27 year.

“We need new medical management plans, which are the action plans and medical orders put together so that it’s less paperwork,” Kirby said. “We have those for asthma, seizures, allergies, and diabetes. Those are also on our website.”

Kirby said the health requirements are important for students — and for the community.
By making sure students are up to date on required immunizations, “we aren’t at risk for diseases that could be prevented,” Kirby said.

Routine physicals “make sure everything is going right, development is where it should be, and there’s no health needs,” she said, and oral health is just as important. “If they aren’t taking care of their teeth, they can become very painful and end up with infections, which affects other things as well.”

The Adams County Health Department partners with families to meet the back-to-school requirements.

“We offer all of the school-required immunizations. We can do lead testing here at the health department,” said Emily Andrews, the department’s director of community engagement. “Immunizations and lead testing are walk-in. There’s no appointment necessary. Anybody can come get either of those things Monday through Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. The immunizations are safe and effective, and they provide a lot of good protection against infectious diseases for the children who are vaccinated, but also for the community at large.”

School physicals are available, by appointment, at the department, located at 330 Vermont.

The department will be part of various back-to-school events and offer off-site clinics to help families meet the requirements.

“Hopefully we’ll make it a little bit easier for everybody to get their back-to-school checklist all done before the deadline,” Andrews said.

Clinic schedule

Three clinics will be offered to help Quincy Public Schools students and families meet health requirements for the 2026-27 year.

Clinics are scheduled at:

—Early Childhood and Family Center on Aug. 14, 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
—Quincy High School on Sept. 10, 7:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.
—Quincy Junior High School on Oct. 6, 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

More information about the clinics, and QR codes to register, are available on the Quincy Public Schools Facebook page.