Massachusetts district to ban all unvaccinated students after chickenpox outbreak

A Massachusetts district will forbid all students without required vaccinations from attending its schools in the 2025-26 academic year, the local CBS affiliate reports.

Newton Public Schools sent a memo to its school committee detailing the move after experiencing an outbreak of chickenpox. 

“A meeting with Newton Health and Human Services and the city’s nursing division also revealed 182 students have been attending school without the proper immunizations since the COVID-19 pandemic,” CBS noted. 

This number is almost 1.6% of the total enrollment of 11,494 students in the 2024-25 school year. 

‘Forced to get vaccinated’ 

Parents expressed different sentiments regarding the decision. One of them, Jennifer Miller, believed vaccinations need to be enforced for the community’s overall health. 

“I wouldn’t want to have my children exposed to other children who aren’t vaccinated,” she said. 

However, Desiree Silva described the policy as “absurd.” 

“I think it should be the parent’s choice,” she told reporters. “I don’t think anyone should be forced to get vaccinated.” 

The state of Massachusetts requires a number of school vaccinations across different age ranges: child care/preschool, grades K-6, grades 7-12 and college. 

All ages include the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) combination vaccine, which medical professionals often encourage amid a growing number of measles cases nationwide. 

“You could have someone travel, you could have someone interact with a traveler who’s been to an area of the country or of the world where measles is being actively transmitted – bringing it back and causing an ongoing outbreak,” said Dr. Shira Doron, chief infection control officer at Tufts Medicine and hospital epidemiologist at Tufts Medical Center. 

However, the state allows for exemptions in the context of religious beliefs or when a doctor advises against vaccinations for a child’s specific health needs, according to CBS. 

School immunization policies have made headlines recently, especially in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

For example, the North Carolina Supreme Court recently allowed a mom to sue her school after it administered a COVID-19 vaccine to her 14-year-old son without her consent. 

Health workers at the school proceeded with the shot in August 2021 without a permission slip, even after the boy had told them he didn’t want it. 

Chief Justice Paul Newby cited U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch when writing for the 5-2 majority: “We may have experienced the greatest intrusions on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country.”