Bill To Allow Easier School Vaccine Opt-Outs Heads to Senate Floor Despite Rising Measles Cases

After shooting down an amendment that would have allowed private schools to continue to require students to be vaccinated, a Senate panel Tuesday night voted to approve legislation that would make it easier for parents to not vaccinate their school-aged children.

“I just wanted to say thank you to the senators for considering the legislation. It’s about the values we hold in high regard. It’s transparency, it’s educated decision making. It’s the right to an education and, again, fundamentally, it’s about parents being able to make the decisions they believe are best for their children,”  SB 1756 bill sponsor and Jacksonville Republican Sen. Clay Yarborough said as he closed on his bill in the Rules Committee, its last stop before a Senate floor vote.

The House has not considered a companion bill and with just 10 days left in the 2026 regular legislative session the future of the proposal — a priority for Gov. Ron DeSantis — is not clear.

Yarborough told the Florida Phoenix after the vote that he has spent his attention this session shepherding the legislation through the Senate, although he acknowledged, “I have had some conversations with the bill sponsor over there.”

He added, “But I haven’t had any conversation with leadership in the House about it.”

The legislation comes as the number of measles cases in Florida continues to rise. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that there were 107 confirmed measles cases in Florida as of Feb. 26.

That places Florida third in the nation in the number of measles cases. South Carolina leads with 653 cases followed by Utah with 149.

Meanwhile, Florida’s vaccine rates have been in decline. DOH data show the number of children who have received their required school vaccines has dipped from 96.3% of seventh graders in 2019 to 92.1% in 2025.

When pressed by some senators about vaccine hesitancy or refusal and the rising number of measles cases and whether the two were connected, Yarborough dodged directly answering.

“I can’t adequately describe the science behind that,” he told Sen. Lori Berman, Democrat from Boynton Beach.

But during debate on the bill, Sen. Shevrin Jones, a Democrat from Miami, didn’t mince words.

“That’s not a coincidence, that’s consequences,” Jones said.

DeSantis and Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo announced last fall they wanted to eliminate from Florida statutes all vaccine mandates. SB 1756 does not, though, accomplish that.

School-age children still would be required to get vaccinated before entering a Florida school or day care. The bill does, though, make it easier for parents and guardians to opt out of those vaccinations by allowing them to reject them based on their consciences.

The bill does not require physicians to accept all patients, regardless of vaccine status. It’s an issue that DeSantis unsuccessfully pushed during the 2025 session. First Lady Casey DeSantis also supported the idea during a press conference earlier this year.

Exemptions from the exemptions

Sen. Colleen Burton, a Republican from Winter Haven, offered an amendment to SB 1756 that would have allowed private schools to continue to require children to have their vaccinations.

According to the Department of Education, there were 2,848 private schools in Florida in school year 2021-2022.

But several parents who supported Yarborough’s underlying legislation opposed Burton’s amendment, saying it was reminiscent of vaccine passports. The amendment, which Yarborough opposed, eventually was shot down on a voice vote.

Yarborough amends his own bill

While Yarborough opposed Burton’s amendment, he did offer a lengthy amendment to his own bill meant to assuage some of the concerns that Republican Sens. Gayle Harrell and Ralph Massullo expressed in previous committee hearings. Specifically, they wanted parents to be provided the same information about vaccines – whether they choose to vaccinate their children or not.

Harrell offered an amendment in the Senate Health Policy Committee to require that but it was shot down.

Yarborough, though, told the panel his amendment would provide the same information to parents regardless of their vaccination decisions.

But Harrell took umbrage with the remark.

“I want to thank you, senator, for accepting half of my amendment,” Harrell said. “He didn’t include the part that required consultation with the health care provider.”

She noted that under the bill, parents who choose to vaccinate their children would be provided information on the most recently issued vaccine information statement published by the CDC as well as materials that would be developed by the Florida boards of medicine and osteopathic medicine, whose members are appointed by the governor.

The bill requires that the information be given to the parents before the vaccines are administered and parents must affirm in writing they’ve been given the information.

Parents who choose not to vaccinate their children would be given the information that the Board of Medicine and the Board of Osteopathic Medicine are required to develop, only.  That information would include links to the CDC’s current vaccine information statements. There’s no requirement that parents sign off on being given the information.

Harrell said it’s been long-standing state policy that physicians consult with patients regarding vaccines and whether to obtain them. The policy was scratched by the Department of Health when Ladapo came to the agency, following the departure of Dr. Scott Rivkees, the governor’s first state surgeon general, she said.

“Had that been included, I might have considered this, but I have such deep concern about this bill,” she said.

–Christine Sexton, Florida Phoenix