Vaccine rule comes only from state, not schools, court says

Children should be vaccinated against COVID-19, according to U.S. health experts, but California lawmakers have been unable to mandate vaccines in the state’s schools. Several school districts have tried to bypass the state and order vaccinations on their own, but an appeals court says the districts have no authority to do so.

“The Legislature has mandated that public health officials — not school authorities — determine the disease(s) for which vaccinations are required,” the state’s Fourth District Court of Appeal in San Diego said Tuesday, rejecting the San Diego Unified School District’s attempt to require vaccinations for students 16 and older.

San Diego, the state’s second-largest school district with more than 121,000 students, proposed in September 2021 requiring its older students to be vaccinated against the coronavirus to attend classes, sports and other inperson events. Its order would allow exemptions for medical reasons but not for religious or personal objections. Later, the district said it would postpone any mandate until at least July 2023, but by then it was already being challenged in court.

Tuesday’s ruling was the first on the issue by a state appeals court and will be binding on lower courts statewide unless it is overturned by the state Supreme Court or contradicted by another appeals court. Other districts seeking to require vaccines have also run into legal hurdles.

The Piedmont Unified School District in the East Bay required students 12 and older to show proof of vaccinations by mid-November 2021, one of the first in California to impose a mandate, but withdrew its order two months later after a judge halted enforcement in response to an anti-vaccine group’s lawsuit. Oakland and Los Angeles had planned vaccine mandates in early 2022 but postponed them while facing potential legal challenges, and after Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration delayed a planned statewide order.

Last month, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended COVID-19 vaccination for children as young as six months. Newsom said his administration would require the vaccines for children 12 and older by July 2022. State Sen. Richard Pan, DSacramento, who has worked as a pediatrician, introduced legislation this January to require children to be vaccinated against the virus to attend school.

But Pan could not gain majority votes for his bill and withdrew it in April. And Newsom’s Department of Public Health delayed the governor’s proposed vaccine mandate until at least July 2023.

The San Diego lawsuit was filed by the nonprofit Let Them Choose, an offshoot of the anti-mask group Let Them Breathe, which unsuccessfully challenged Newsom’s order requiring masks in California schools. That mandate took effect in June 2020 and was lifted by Newsom this March, although some districts have maintained their own mask requirements.

California requires schoolchildren to be vaccinated against 10 communicable diseases, such as measles, mumps, chicken pox, polio and rubella. As the appeals court noted, state law allows the Department of Public Health to add to that list, but does not expressly authorize local agencies to do so.

San Diego school officials cited a state law that says a school “shall give diligent care to the health and physical development of pupils.” But the appeals court said the law does not refer to vaccinations and instead allows schools to employ staff for such tasks as checking students’ eyesight and hearing.

Another law, allowing schools to “administer an immunizing agent to a pupil,” applies only to vaccines already authorized by the state, Justice William Dato said in the 3-0 ruling, upholding a Superior Court judge’s decision against the district.

By allowing state health officials to require vaccination for additional illnesses, state law “expresses a directive that the vaccinations required for school attendance present a statewide issue subject to statewide criteria,” Dato wrote. “In a nutshell, local variations must give way to a uniform state standard.”