Vaccine Mandate Guide For PA: What To Know Before School Starts

PENNSYLVANIA — Getting children ready for the new school year can be stressful, with new supplies to buy and bus routes to figure out. Pennsylvania also requires certain vaccinations for school children entering grades K-12, so here is what to know:

Children attending kindergarten through their senior year of high school are required to receive a number of immunizations to attend class at Pennsylvania schools, including for polio, MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella), and DTaP (diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis). And, students are required to get a dose of the meningococcal conjugate vaccine later in their school careers.

Vaccine recommendations are developed by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.

Vaccination requirements vary by state. All states require that incoming kindergartners get polio vaccines, and all but Iowa require measles vaccinations. All but a handful of states require Hepatitis A vaccinations, while fewer than 20 require Hep. B — including Pennsylvania.

Exemptions are allowed in Pennsylvania for religious, philosophical, and medical reasons, but students who do not have an exemption or an extension filed could be excluded from going to class if they do not have the required immunizations in time.

Pennsylvania requires doses of DTaP (diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis), IPV (polio), varicella (chickenpox), MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella), and Hepatitis B vaccines for all students, beginning in kindergarten.

Students entering 7th grade are required to get a dose of the Tdap (Tetanus, diphtheria, acellular pertussis) vaccine, and a dose of the meningococcal conjugate vaccine (MCV) on the first day of 7th grade, according to the state Department of Health.

Students entering their senior year are required to have a dose of MCV on the first day of 12th grade, or at the age of 16 or over.

National trends show that the percentage of children vaccinated against MMR declined nationally from about 95 percent in 2019-2020 to 94 percent the following school year and to 93 percent in the 2021-2022 school year, the last year for which data is available.

Though the decrease is slight, the CDC data shows about 250,000 school children nationwide are unprotected against measles, mumps and rubella — diseases that had been all but eradicated for decades before a tide of vaccine hesitancy began sweeping the country.

The MMR vaccination rate is the lowest in a decade, below the Healthy People 2030 target of 95 percent immunization coverage, which officials say is the level needed to prevent community transmission of measles. In all, 32 states saw declines in MMR coverage in the 2021-2022 school year — including Pennsylvania. Read more — Vaccinations In PA Kindergarteners Trend Down: What To Know