Data Dive: Here’s How Many Kids Are Unvaccinated At Your School
More than 20% of students in Hawaiʻi don’t have all of the vaccines required to attend school.
If a 95% immunization rate is the threshold needed to protect unvaccinated students from a measles outbreak, data from Hawaiʻi public schools paints a worrisome picture.
Roughly two-thirds of public elementary schools in the state reported vaccination rates below 95% last year, though it’s unclear which vaccines those students were missing. At 69 Department of Education schools, more than 5% of students had waivers exempting them from getting any vaccinations at all.
The state’s total measles vaccination rate is 90% — lower than Texas, which reported a 94% vaccination rate for its kindergarteners last year and has seen more than 600 measles cases since January.
Vaccination rates vary dramatically from school to school in Hawaiʻi. At 21 middle and high schools in the DOE, less than half of students were fully vaccinated last year.
Students must meet all of DOH’s immunization requirements to attend school unless they receive a vaccine exemption for religious or medical reasons. Roughly 4% of Hawaiʻi students received a religious exemption last year, up from 2% in 2019.
The health department is working with schools and healthcare providers to increase access to vaccines, but the percentage of students receiving their required vaccines vary widely across the state.
Two private schools – St. Catherine School on Kauaʻi and The Mele’aina School on Maui – had no students fully vaccinated.
St. Catherine School closed in June 2024, and The Mele’aina School is a small preschool that only enrolled 12 students last year.
Of Hawaiʻi’s public elementary schools, Koko Head Elementary School in Honolulu reported the lowest vaccination rate in 2024, with just under 50% of its students missing some or all of their vaccines. Hanalei Elementary School on Kauaʻi reported the next lowest rate, with 46% of its students missing vaccines.
The health department recently issued an emergency rule allowing students with a religious exemption to get inocculated for measles without giving up the ability to skip all other vaccines and still attend school.
Look up vaccination rates by school in the table below:
Civil Beat’s education reporting is supported by a grant from Chamberlin Family Philanthropy and its community health coverage is supported by the Cooke Foundation, Atherton Family Foundation and Papa Ola Lokahi.
Civil Beat’s community health coverage is supported by the Atherton Family Foundation, Swayne Family Fund of Hawai‘i Community Foundation, the Cooke Foundation and Papa Ola Lōkahi.
