Hollister schools Trustee Peter Hernandez made a motion at the latest board meeting that didn’t receive a second in favor of a resolution urging the state legislature to place a two-year moratorium on implementing a bill to eliminate “personal belief exemptions” for vaccinations.
A nonprofit advocacy group called “A Voice for Choice” has been urging school districts across the state to approve a resolution urging the legislature to delay the bill’s implementation.
Senate Bill 277, scheduled to take effect July 1, ends the option for children attending private or public schools to seek “personal belief exemptions” to vaccines. Senators Richard Pan, D-Sacramento, and Ben Allen, D-Redondo Beach, introduced the bill.
The former law, which remains in place through this school year, allows for “personal belief exemptions” to vaccines if a parent consulted with a health care practitioner and received information about vaccines’ benefits and risks.
“I just think this is going to be a legal issue eventually,” said Hernandez, who called it a lawsuit waiting to happen.
The trustee alleged the law was unconstitutional because it forced people to have their children get vaccinated, even if it goes against their religion, in order to attend public school. He added some parents may not be able to afford to homeschool, one of the few ways parents can still opt out of the vaccinations under the new law.
District nurses Anita Sarringhaus and Miranda Eyster also spoke during public comment in favor of the new law and against a moratorium. Sarringhaus highlighted that three students in the district are paralyzed from the waist down due to complications from chickenpox.
“Everything has its risk,” she said.
Eyster added that immune-compromised students, including those in cancer treatments, are already more at risk of getting sick and are protected when there is “herd immunity.” The term refers to a situation where a “sufficient proportion” of a population is immune to an infectious disease through vaccination or prior illness, which gives even those that are not vaccinated some protection, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Parents can still choose to not vaccinate and have their children homeschooled, Eyster said.
Among the supporting documents provided to trustees was a letter from Christina Hildebrand, the president of A Voice for Choice, Inc., in favor of a moratorium, saying SB277 was “a lawyer’s paradise” and could financially affect the district.
“SB277 is an unfunded law,” Hildebrand wrote. “No state or federal funds have been set aside to provide for the implementation of this mandate. Each and every school and school district in California that implements Senate Bill 277 opens itself up to litigation, because schools and school districts have now been placed in the role of the legal ‘gatekeeper’ for implementing this law, and therefore will be the entity named in remedy lawsuits, and thereby will be financially responsible for all associated legal costs.”
The new law requires students next school year to get vaccinated for at least 10 illnesses including diphtheria, hepatitis B, measles, mumps, the whooping cough, rubella, tetanus and chickenpox. The law would not apply to students with medical exemptions and those enrolled in home-based private schools or certain independent study programs.
The number of students opting for a personal belief exemption has been small in the past, according to a district administrator. In the Hollister School District, more than 99 percent of students had vaccinations, McIntire told the Free Lance last year. Of the less than 1 percent opting out of immunizations, most did so with “personal belief exemptions,” he said.
