All 50 states have legislation requiring specified vaccines for students. Although exemptions vary from state to state, all school immunization laws grant exemptions to children for medical reasons. There are 45 states and Washington D.C. that grant religious exemptions for people who have religious objections to immunizations. Currently, 15 states allow philosophical exemptions for children whose parents object to immunizations because of personal, moral or other beliefs. Many states align their vaccine requirements with recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. At this time, no state requires children to receive the COVID-19 vaccine for school entry. Below this map are examples of enacted legislation related to school immunization requirements for the last several years. 

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Editor’s Note: Exceptions below: . . 

* The existing statute in Minnesota and Louisiana does not explicitly recognize religion as a reason for claiming an exemption, however, as a practical matter, the non-medical exemption may encompass religious beliefs.

**In Virginia, parents can receive a personal exemption only for the HPV vaccine.

***Missouri’s personal belief exemption does not apply to public schools, only child care facilities.

Enacted Legislation 2020

• Colorado Senate Bill 163 requires a person seeking a nonmedical exemption (either religious or personal belief) to submit a certificate of completion of an online educational module or a certificate of nonmedical exemption. It establishes an immunization goal of 95% of each school’s student population and requires schools to publish its immunization and exemption rates on a document that is distributed to parents, guardians and students.
• Virginia House Bill 1090 provides that the Board of Health’s Regulations for the Immunization of School Children shall be consistent with the Immunization Schedule developed and published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Academy of Family Physicians.

Enacted Legislation 2019

• Arkansas House Bill 1786 requires a public or private school to create and maintain a report that provides certain information regarding the number and percentage of students who have an exemption from the requirement to obtain vaccinations.
• Maine House Bill 586 removes personal and religious belief exemptions for public school immunization requirements.
• New York Senate Bill 2994 removes the religious exemption for public school immunization requirements.
• Washington House Bill 1638 removes the personal belief exemption for the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine requirement for public schools, private schools and day care centers.

Enacted Legislation 2018

• Illinois Senate Bill 2866 provides for the distribution of written information about the link between HPV and certain types of cancers to all students entering sixth grade and their parents or legal guardians.
• Louisiana House Bill 176 requires students who are entering eleventh grade or who are 16 and entering any grade to provide satisfactory evidence of current immunization against meningococcal disease as a condition of school entry, and provides for exceptions.

Enacted Legislation 2017

• Indiana House Bill 1069 adds meningitis to the required immunizations a student enrolling in a residential campus of an approved postsecondary educational institution must be immunized against.
• Utah House Bill 308 requires the Department of Health to create an online education module regarding certain preventable diseases; amends the grounds for exemptions from required vaccines; requires the renewal of a student’s vaccination exemption under certain conditions; create a new vaccination exemption form; allows for the vaccination exemption form to be completed online in conjunction with the education module and discontinues the practice of allowing local health departments to vaccinate students and recover costs.  . . .

Click HERE to view the full chart of School Vaccine Requirements and Exemptions for each state. . . .

Religious exemption indicates that there is a provision in the statute that allows parents to exempt their children from vaccination if it contradicts their sincere religious beliefs.

Philosophical exemption indicates that the statutory language does not restrict the exemption to purely religious or spiritual beliefs.  For example, Maine allows restrictions based on “moral, philosophical or other personal beliefs,” and Minnesota allows objections based on “conscientiously held beliefs of the parent or guardian.”

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(Excerpt from National Conference of State Legislators. Photo Credit: Getty Images.)