Conditional Admission

In limited circumstances, some children who have not received one or more required immunizations may attend school while they catch up on these immunizations.

·        Children admitted with a temporary medical exemption to one or more immunization(s) as documented by California-licensed physicians (M.D. or D.O.) prior to admission: To attend school, these children should receive all vaccines except those listed in the exemption. The physician documentation should include the date by which the exemption expires. Once this expiration date has occurred, the child may continue in attendance only after the school receives documentation of receipt of the temporarily exempted vaccines.

·        Children who have received some but not all required immunization doses and are NOT CURRENTLY DUE for any doses at the time of admission. These students should NOT be admitted until they have received all doses that are currently due. If additional required doses are due later, the children may be admitted conditionally. Table 2, Section 6035  shows when doses are due.

·        Any child who is not completely immunized against a particular communicable disease may be subject to exclusion if exposed to the disease or during an outbreak of the disease.

New Law (SB 277) Effective in 2016

Governor Brown signed Senate Bill (SB) 277 on June 30, 2015. SB 277 changes immunization requirements for children entering child care or school. Starting January 1, 2016:

• Parents or guardians of students in any school or child-care facility, whether public or private, will no longer be allowed to submit a personal beliefs exemption to a currently-required vaccine.

• Students will no longer be required to have immunizations for entry if they attend:

  •  A home-based private school or
  •  An independent study program with no classroom-based instruction.

However, parents or guardians must continue to provide immunization records for these students to their schools, and schools must continue to maintain and report records of immunizations that have been received for these students.  

• The immunization requirements do not prohibit pupils from accessing special education and related services required by their individualized education programs.

• Medical and personal beliefs exemptions will be allowed from any new immunization requirement initiated by CDPH for attendance at school or child care.