Key Takeaways
- California will maintain its current student vaccination requirements despite President Trump’s new executive order.
- State health officials warned that the Trump administration’s recent announcement could cause confusion among families.
- California has reported 58 cases of measles so far this year, a marked increase from 25 cases in 2025.
As schools reopen amid a national rise in measles cases, California students will continue to follow the state’s existing vaccination requirements, despite President Donald Trump’s latest efforts to change the vaccination schedule for the nation’s children.
California has the power to determine which vaccines are required for students to attend school. The state will continue to follow the guidelines created by the American Academy of Pediatrics and other experts, said Dr. Erica Pan, director of the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) and state public health officer.
THE decreepublished on August 10, calls for distributing childhood vaccinations over several medical visits. It also recommends administering the combined measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine in three separate injections and reduces the number of vaccinations recommended for all children ages 18 to 11.
Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the recommendations during a press conference in which they reiterated that vaccinations cause autism, a theory that has been disproven by extensive research.
Saucepan and American Academy of Pediatrics Chairman Andrew D. Racine said there was no evidence to justify making changes to the childhood immunization schedule.
“The sole purpose of this announcement is to sow confusion so that more people doubt the importance of vaccines,” Racine said in a statement. “Delaying or skipping injections is risky, especially as measles continues to spread and children return to school. »
While the order only advises states to consider updating their vaccination policies, it also calls on the U.S. attorney general to initiate legal action against states that do not allow religious or medical exemptions. California only allows medical exemptions.
California rules will not change
California was part of a coalition of 15 states that took legal action the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in February for attempting to remove the recommended status for seven vaccines. The lawsuit also challenged the replacement of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, a group of experts that has guided U.S. vaccine policy for decades, calling it “unlawful.”
In March, athe federal judge ruled that the advisory committee had been poorly replaced and interrupted the project to modify the vaccination schedule.
California law requires students to be vaccinated against 10 serious communicable diseases. Proof of immunization is required in kindergarten and seventh grade, as well as when entering child care, transitional kindergarten, or transferring schools from out of state.
“This executive order will not change anything in California,” Pan said. “We are truly committed to protecting access to vaccines for our communities. »
What vaccines are required in California?
California requires children to be vaccinated against 10 serious communicable diseases – diphtheria, Haemophilus influenzae type B (bacterial meningitis), measles, mumps, pertussis (whooping cough), polio, rubella, tetanus, hepatitis B and chickenpox – to attend public or private schools and daycares.
Studies linked clusters of unvaccinated children to outbreaks of measles, whooping cough, chicken pox, or chickenpox.
Measles cases are increasing
The executive order comes as measles cases in the United States have reached their highest level in 35 years. There have been 2,566 confirmed cases in the United States so far this year, compared to 2,289 confirmed cases for all of 2025.
California has reported 58 cases of measles so far this year, compared to 25 in 2025, according to the CDPH. All but 14 cases involved people under the age of 20, and all but four were unvaccinated or their status was unknown, according to the data of California Department of Public Health.
Catherine Flores Martin, executive director of the California Immunization Coalition, fears the number of cases nationwide could be higher.
“Some parents have gotten used to not reporting their cases,” Flores Martin said. “So that’s a big concern.”
Measles is very contagious. About 90% of unvaccinated people who are exposed to someone with measles will contract the disease.
Flores Martin said requiring children to be vaccinated during multiple visits could make it more difficult for low-income parents.
“It will be much harder for the parents and terrible for the children,” Flores Martin said. “You know, stress. I would say every time I went to the doctor when I was a kid, I was always stressed because I was afraid to get vaccinated.”
Does the order create confusion?
Vaccines are safe and are continually monitored and studied in the United States and California, Pan said. Still, she and other health experts worry the White House announcement could create confusion over vaccinations just as students return to school.
Top health officials from the San Diego Unified and Sacramento City Unified school districts told EdSource they have not noticed increased vaccine hesitancy this school year and have not received questions from parents about the president’s recommendations. This does not mean that parents have stopped raising concerns about vaccination.
Susan Sivils, senior nurse at Sacramento City Unified, reassures hesitant parents that their children can safely receive multiple vaccines in one visit.
“If they’re not comfortable with that, that’s their decision as a parent,” Sivils said. “…But if they’re determined to do it, then I just make sure they understand that until they’re up to date with all of these vaccines, they’re not going to be allowed to start school.”
Sivils said she only knows of one family this year who chose to bring their child for multiple visits to receive their vaccines.
More parents are choosing to wait until their children are older to vaccinate their children, Flores Martin said.
“They say they don’t hesitate, they just want to wait,” she said. “These are informed, educated people, but what they’re deciding is very wrong from a scientific standpoint and from a health standpoint for their children. So we’re in uncharted territory because parents trusted their doctor so much, but they don’t trust him on this.”
State vaccination rates are high
California Kindergarten vaccination rate remain above the national average of 92.4%. But rates declined from 95.6% in the 2016-17 school year to 93.7% in 2024-25. Measles vaccination rates are slightly better with 96.1% of kindergartners vaccinated in 2024-25, compared to 97% in 2018-19.
Even relatively small declines can make a big difference in a state that has experienced 355 391 last school year. A 1% drop in measles vaccinations, for example, would mean there would be about 5,600 fewer students in those two grades who received the MMR vaccine.
The share of students benefiting from medical exemptions remains low, at around 0.1%. But public health experts say the number of students enrolled in private home schools or independent study programs without classroom instruction is increasing.
Although students in these schools are not required to be vaccinated, their schools are required to keep vaccination records or risk losing some public funding.
Vaccination rates are also uneven across the state, with rural, charter schools and schools in low-income communities more likely to have undervaccinated students, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.
If the vaccination rate falls below 95% in a school or community, that opens up the possibility of an outbreak, Pan said.
“So, yes, we want people to be up to date on their measles vaccine and make sure they’ve received both doses. That’s part of the school vaccination requirements,” Pan said.
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This story was originally published by EdSource.
