Back to School with Vaccine Forms
By Mary Budinger / August 4, 2025
Arizona schools can require students to provide either:
- proof of certain vaccinations, or
- personal belief, religious, and medical exemptions for K-12.
These rules apply to all schools – public, private, charter, and parochial schools through 12th grade in Arizona.
In no circumstance can the State force students to be vaccinated. However, students who lack documentary proof of immunization “shall not attend school during outbreak periods of
communicable immunization-preventable diseases as determined by the department of health services or local health department,” according to the law. “The department of health services or
local health department shall transmit notice of this determination to the school administrator responsible for the exclusion of the pupils.”
If you choose to use the personal exemption form, it is downloadable from the Arizona Department of Health Services. The Department states: “The information below is provided to
ensure that parents are informed about the risks of not vaccinating.”
Parents of pre-K and day care children need to submit proof of vaccinations or a religious exemption. The religious exemption form is identical to the K-12 exemption form except for the
title.
There is also a medical exemption form option for children with a medical condition who may be adversely affected on a temporary or permanent basis by one or more of the required vaccine
doses.
As you look at the forms, you will see that they do not list the Covid vaccine, or the human papillomavirus vaccine (HPV – a sexually transmitted infection). Local advocates and former
Senator Nancy Barto worked to successfully pass a bill that would prohibit the Arizona Department of Health Services from adding those two vaccines as school requirements. Initially,
only the HPV vaccine was prohibited. The following year Rep. Joanne Osborn also included prohibiting the Covid vaccine.
Activists said parents should have more control over vaccination decisions, and that both the Covid vaccines and the HPV vaccine (GARDASIL®) have caused a multitude of side effects
and deaths.
Many medical experts point out that Covid seems to bypass children. “It’s true for lots of viral infections like measles and chickenpox,” said Dr. Cody Meissner at Dartmouth College’s Geisel
School of Medicine. “That’s why children used to have chickenpox parties before there was a vaccine.” Parents would host parties and invite infected children, ensuring their children would
contract chickenpox when they’re younger, knowing the disease is more severe if contracted in adulthood. More recent studies show that unvaccinated children are healthier than vaccinated, in
great part because childhood illnesses train the immune system to be robust.
Children following the CDC schedule will have had 52 vaccines by age 5.
The percentage of kindergartners in Arizona with vaccine exemptions is among the highest in the U.S., according to Axios’ review of CDC data. About 8.5% of Arizona kindergartners were
exempt from childhood vaccines in 2023. The national average is about 3.3%.
Not everyone agrees parents should have more control over vaccination decisions. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), for example, just launched a nationwide campaign to end
personal and religious exemptions. The organization also wants medical exemptions more tightly scrutinized. AAP advocates for “the elimination of nonmedical exemptions from immunizations
as contrary to optimal individual and public health.”
Forty-five states allow religious beliefs to be used as a basis for an exemption, and 15 states allow “personal beliefs,” “philosophical,” or “conscientious objection” exemptions. Attorney Aaron Siri shared with Del Bigtree his reaction to the AAP’s campaign: “This is not about health. If they cared about health they would care about the chronic health epidemic. They have overseen, in the last 40 years, the largest decline in childhood health in recorded human history. The AAP is a trade organization, not a medical organization. They are there to ensure the profitability of their members.”
He also pointed out that the AAP said in that same press release that pertussis requires a population immunization rate of ≥95% to prevent sustained community transmission. “Even the AAP does not understand how these products work, that pertussis is not communicable. That’s incredible.”
RESOURCES
1. For a list of which vaccines are recommended by the Arizona Department of Health Services for Arizona school children, click here and scroll to page 65.
2. To schedule a representative from the Arizona Chapter of Children’s Health Defense to talk
to your group about vaccines or the epidemic of childhood chronic disease, email us or call us at 928.362.1942.