There are the typically bad Idaho vaccination numbers, and then there are milestone bad numbers.

In 2024-25, more than 25% of Idaho kindergartners attended school without full proof of immunizations. That’s almost certainly a first. And a troubling one.

A hodgepodge of spotty records and immunization opt-outs makes it tougher for school officials to know which of their students are vaccinated and which students are not. That would make it that much harder to keep schools open — or decide who can attend school — during an infectious disease outbreak.

Then, of course, there are the health risks. If this is not just a reporting issue — and is also a symptom of an actual decline in immunization rates — more students are in danger of contracting measles, whooping cough and other diseases. The kind of contagious and preventable diseases that vaccinations have reined in for years.

Breaking down the 2024-25 numbers

It’s important to note that these numbers do not represent an actual immunization rate. They instead track a reporting rate, for proof of immunization. For kindergartners this past school year, that rate came in at just 74.8%. (Rachel Sun first reported these numbers for the Lewiston Tribune.)

To put that 74.8% figure into perspective, Idaho Education News asked for comparable data from previous years. The state Department of Health and Welfare provided data going back to 2010-11.

The numbers have never come close to 95% —  an immunization rate that would provide “herd immunity” that protects unvaccinated children from disease. But the numbers have been steadily dropping for years.

In 2023-24, the rate was 76.4%.

That’s a decrease of 1.6 percentage points, and let’s put a human face to it. Slightly more than 22,000 kindergartners attended Idaho schools this past year. A 1.6 percentage point dropoff equates to slightly more than 350 kindergartners.

It’s easy to slough off Idaho’s dismal vaccination numbers, because it’s not a new story. Idaho EdNews has been writing about this issue since 2015 — when this website itself was in its infancy.

So we’ve been watching this for a while. Watching the numbers get steadily worse.

And when Health and Welfare officials look at this year’s numbers, they don’t see an aberration. Instead, they see a trend that began long before COVID-19 turned “vaccine hesitancy” into a catchphrase.

“The 2024-25 school year appears to be a continuation of what we have observed since pre-pandemic school years,” deputy state epidemiologist Kathy Turner said this week, in response to a series of written questions from EdNews.

And, she says, a change in state rules is partly to blame.

Opt-outs made easy

It’s a misnomer to say any childhood vaccination is required in Idaho. Measles, polio and whooping cough are on the list of recommended vaccines, and the state has never even recommended the COVID-19 vaccine for kids. And parents can opt out of any or all vaccinations by filing an exemption with the school.

In 2018, state rules “drastically loosened” the exemption process, Turner said. Idaho parents can easily opt their kids out of immunizations. They don’t have to cite a religious issue or a health concern; a simple slip of paper is sufficient.

The percentage of exemptions has steadily increased since 2018, Turner said. “It is easier to provide the school with an exemption request than to provide an immunization record.”

Turner said this “matter of convenience” might explain the troubling reporting rates in some rural counties. It might also explain the 28.6% immunization reporting rate for kindergartners in online school; it’s easy for the schools to meet their paperwork requirements simply by accepting an exemption form.

Health and Welfare is trying to make it easier for parents to report their kids’ immunization data to schools. A mobile app, called Docket, allows parents to access the state’s immunization registry through their smartphone.

“We want to make getting child immunization records much easier for parents so they can provide the record to schools without having to request the record from providers,” Turner said.

An exemption explosion

Whenever Idaho puts up immunization numbers that are bad by Idaho standards, keep in mind that Idaho numbers are consistently bad by national standards.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, Idaho appeared to have the lowest kindergarten immunization reporting rate in the nation for 2023-24. (We need to say Idaho appears to be last in the nation, because the CDC site doesn’t have data for Montana.)

Not coincidentally — and predictably, given its lax state guidelines — Idaho also has by far the highest immunization exemption rate in the nation.

Idaho’s exemption rate was a whopping 14.3%. Nationally, the exemption rate is only 3.3%.

The pandemic probably has contributed to higher opt-out rates.

In 2019-20, the national opt-out rate was 2.5%.

But, relatively speaking, Idaho has seen an exemption explosion. In 2019-20, Idaho reported a 7.6% opt-out rate.

What happens next?

To be clear, the 2025 Legislature didn’t further water down Idaho’s school immunization policy.

In one of their last acts of the year, lawmakers passed a rewritten Idaho Medical Freedom Act — which said administrators can still close schools, or exclude contagious students from school, during a disease outbreak.

While legislators preserved this line of defense, they also gave themselves a blank check to rewrite immunization policy. House Bill 290, which passed with bipartisan support, moves all state immunization policy into Idaho code. That means lawmakers could simply pass a bill to winnow down the state’s list of recommended vaccines, or make it even easier for parents to opt out of reporting requirements.

Health and Welfare took no position on HB 290 during the session, and declined comment on it this week. But given the Legislature’s stated positions on medical freedom and vaccinations, it’s hard to envision lawmakers tightening up Idaho’s lenient immunization language.

Just like it’s hard to envision Idaho’s immunization numbers somehow getting better any time soon.

Kevin Richert writes a weekly analysis on education policy and education politics. Look for his stories each Thursday.