Schools Not Keeping Track When Kids Are Behind On Their Shots

When Sara Martín's children were infants, she made sure they got all the recommended immunizations.

"And then somewhere when they became toddlers I started to fall a little behind on the vaccinations," she says. "Not intentionally — just, that's kind of how it happened for me."

Martín is 29 years old and a single mother of two. She says it was a huge chore to travel from her home in East Los Angeles to a community clinic downtown.

"It's not just about paying the fare for the bus — which seems pretty inexpensive, right? Like a dollar and some change," Martin says. It was also a complicated commute. "Maybe two buses there, and two buses back, because it was a long trip."

There was also the challenge, while on food stamps, of feeding the kids throughout that trip.

"I don't want to feel like these are excuses," Martín says. "It was just the reality — these are choices I had to make."

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