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The number of students who are not vaccinated because of their parents’ beliefs is significantly higher than average at some of Ottawa’s alternative schools, data from the public health department shows.

On average, 1.73 per cent of students at Ottawa’s four school boards were exempted from Ontario’s legal requirement they be vaccinated against childhood diseases after their parents obtained objections for philosophical or religious reasons.

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Four of the five schools with the highest philosophical exemption rates in 2018-19 offered alternative education programming.

The highest rate was at the French public school board’s Trille des Bois, a Waldorf school, where 11.26 per cent of students had philosophical exemptions from vaccinations. The school had an enrolment of 553 students.

Next highest was tiny Lady Evelyn Alternative in the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board, where 10.74 per cent of students had exemptions. Enrolment at the school was 149. The remaining schools in the top five were St. Isidore in the Ottawa Catholic School Board, with 368 students and an exemption rate of 8.15 per cent; Regina Street Alternative school, with 220 students and an exemption rate of 7.73 per cent; and Churchill Alternative school, with 275 students and an exemption rate of 5.82 per cent.