As many as 20,000 students will be receiving suspension warning orders from the Region of Waterloo's public health department in the coming weeks, almost double the usual number, because they haven't provided proof of immunization.

Linda Black manages the region's immunization program and says the public health unit will begin mailing letters next week. Failure to adhere to records requirements will result in suspensions for children of all ages.

"It's our hope every year never to suspend any child but we know that that's unrealistic," Black says.

She notes the provincial addition of more vaccines to the required list has dramatically increased the amount of students facing suspension. These include shots for pertussis (whooping cough), varicella (chicken pox) and meningococcal diseases.

"With that addition, it's created almost double the amount of students on our list as compared to previous years," says Black.

According to Black, no full suspensions were issued last year as the region transitioned to a new information system, which didn't provide reliable enough data for the region to move forward with. Now, it appears all records are in order and there's some catch-up work to do.

"And because we didn't go that far last year, we didn't clean up as many records as we hoped to. So the leftover from last year with the addition of the new kids and of the new vaccines has created another 20,000 notices that we needed to send out this year."

The public health manager says students and parents have three weeks from the time they receive their letter to get their immunization records updated before they face suspension.

Elementary school students must update their records before April 6 while secondary school students have until May 11.