US school vaccination rates inch down yet again and exemptions reach record high

kindergarten vaccination rates inched down again last year and the share of children with exemptions rose to an all-time high, according to federal data posted Monday. The fraction of kids exempted from vaccine requirements rose to 4.2%, up from 3.6% the year before. That’s an estimated 155,000 children nationally during the 2025-2026 school year.

It’s the fourth consecutive year that the national average exemption rate has reached a new record, and the vast majority are parents withholding shots for nonmedical reasons. Exemptions increased in 41 states and the District of Columbia. Experts point to turmoil caused by federal health officials.

was a leading voice in the antivaccine movement before President Donald Trump put him in charge of federal health agencies. In the last 18 months, Kennedy and other federal officials have repeatedly tried to revise and reduce childhood vaccination guidance. Earlier this month, Trump called for revamped childhood vaccination recommendations that promote his discredited theory that childhood shots should be spaced out into separate medical visits.

“The root cause of this is primarily because there’s so much chaos and confusion in vaccination recommendation systems in the last year or so,” said Dr. James Campbell, of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Vaccination rates fell for many diseases The CDC reported that 92.4% of 2025-26 kindergarteners got their required measles-mumps-rubella shots, down slightly from the previous year.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the vaccination rate was 95% — the level that makes it unlikely that a single infection will spark a disease cluster or outbreak. Vaccination rates also fell for polio, for the combination shot against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis, and for the first dose of the vaccine against chickenpox. The rate held steady for protection against hepatitis B.

But that’s a vaccine given shortly after birth, and it will take a few years before recent federal efforts to upend infant hepatitis B vaccine recommendations would appear in the vaccination rates of kindergartners, Campbell said. The vaccination numbers were posted as the U.S. experiences its worst year for measles since 1991.