While vaccine requirements have not changed for Texas students this year — despite federal efforts to drop and space out some inoculations — Becca Harkleroad understands how many parents are confused.
“Despite all the confusion that hits the news … nothing’s changed,” said Harkleroad, the executive director of the Texas School Nurses Organization.
In January, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention dropped the rotavirus, COVID-19, influenza, hepatitis A and hepatitis B vaccines from the recommended list. But a federal judge in Massachusetts — and a Biden appointee — halted that move in March, keeping the pre-2026 vaccine recommendations in place. The federal government is appealing that decision.
Then on Monday, President Donald Trump ordered the splitting up of the common measles, mumps and rubella vaccine into three separate shots. The three have been combined into a single shot since 1971 to help ensure children do not delay or miss doses and after hearing from parents who wanted to reduce the number of doctor visits needed to complete vaccinations.
But because each state, including Texas, is able to set up its own recommendations, Trump’s move serves as a guideline, not a mandate, the Texas Department of State Health Services confirmed.
According to the state’s health department, nothing has changed for the 2026-2027 school year.
Any changes to Texas’ requirements would have to be made by the Legislature which will meet again in January, according to the state health agency. The Republican-controlled state Legislature has generally embraced policies that weaken vaccine mandates, including last year’s passage of a bill that made vaccine exemption forms more accessible to parents.
“Nothing has changed for vaccine requirements in Texas at this time,” Harkleroad said after Trump’s action. “It’s very concerning to me that the president’s executive order raised the age-old questions about vaccines — their safety, efficacy, and the autism link. That science is settled.”
Rebecca Hardy, president of Texans for Vaccine Choice, praised Trump’s decision.
“TFVC applauds Trump’s EO that moves federal vaccine policy toward greater informed consent and vaccine safety, but Texas law still needs to change,” she said, adding that it’s not her group’s priority to continue “chasing an ever-changing vaccine schedule.”
Instead, she wants to see Texas expand and strengthen exemption rights. “When Texans have the right to exempt themselves, the specific vaccines on the schedule become irrelevant,” Hardy said.
For decades, the CDC has relied on a panel of vaccine experts to make recommendations about what vaccines should be administered to children, which informs various states’ vaccine requirements to enroll in public schools and how doctors counsel patients. But last year, the U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired all 17 members of the nation’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, and replaced them with vaccine policy critics.
Trump’s Monday order waters down longstanding vaccine schedule-setting procedures even more by sidestepping the CDC and ACIP altogether and instead tasking the U.S. Health and Human Services’ Safer Childhood Vaccines task force with reporting back to the president on implementation of his order.
“Decades ago, children received only a small fraction of the vaccines required today,” Trump said while signing the order on Monday. “Effective immediately, my administration is recognizing gold standard childhood vaccine recommendations for only 11 core vaccinations against the most serious and dangerous diseases along with the MMR.”
Trump further supported that the five vaccines that the feds tried to drop from the recommendation list in January be allowed to move forward, which does not affect the judge’s March decision. Trump also directed the U.S. attorney general to employ legal challenges against states that violate children’s rights to religious or medical vaccination exemptions.
“The Immunization Partnership is alarmed by the administration’s executive order on childhood vaccines,” said Rekha Lakshmanan, executive director of the Houston-based The Immunization Partnership, a vaccine education and advocacy group. “Rather than building trust, it adds to the confusing messages parents are receiving while Texas confronts declining vaccination rates and outbreaks of preventable diseases.”
Unlikely to face such federal scrutiny on exemption violations, Texas has long allowed parents to exempt children from vaccines, expanding exemptions reasons widely in 2005 to include “conscientious” objections. Then last year, lawmakers made exemptions even easier to obtain by making the exemption forms downloadable. Previously, parents had to request a form from DSHS to be mailed to them.
Since Texas parents have easier access to exemption forms, the number of K-12 students with an exemption increased in Texas despite a record-breaking measles outbreak that began in West Texas last year. Two children died and 762 people were infected in Texas in 2025. This year, the number of measles cases in the United States has already surpassed the number seen nationally last year.
Last year, there was a slight increase in the measles vaccination rate for Texas kindergarteners, but that comes after years of decreases. The Texas Tribune offers a way to check a school’s vaccination rate here.
Compared to the previous school year, 18 fewer counties had kindergarten measles vaccination rates at the 95% benchmark for herd immunity. The number of counties where at least 5% of kindergarteners had a conscientious exemption for measles on file increased from 98 to 132, representing 52% of all counties. Ninety six of 252 counties met the kindergarten benchmark of 95% vaccination against measles
So far this summer, public health officials have seen a drop in the number of children who typically turn out for publicly funded vaccinations.
“The numbers are way down,” said Dr. Philip Huang, the director of Dallas Health and Human Services.
He attributed the drop to confusion over what is required and stepped-up immigration enforcement. Like last year, Huang says, fewer Hispanic children are turning up at back-to-school vaccination events typically held during the summer months.
“We’ve been reporting a large number of drops in our Hispanic numbers. We’re hearing about the concerns over the ICE situation,” he said, referring to the increase in federal immigration enforcement.
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