School listed as exposure site in ninth Shasta measles case has history of low vaccination rates, state data shows

02.26.2026: Since this story was published, we’ve been made aware of more recent data from the California Department of Public Health. That data shows that Redding Christian School had a kindergarten vaccination rate of ≥95% in the 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 school years. The data also shows that every school listed in our graph toward the bottom of the story, except for North Cottonwood and Columbia Elementary, had a kindergarten vaccination rate of ≥95% in the 2024-2025 school year. While the most recent immunization rates are one piece of a school’s herd immunity picture, historical rates over multiple years play a role in painting a picture of each school’s potential overall vaccination rates across student grade levels.

The private school identified as an exposure site in Shasta County’s most recent measles case has a history of low vaccination rates, state data shows. 

Redding Christian School kindergarteners had an 87.8% vaccination rate for measles in the 2021-2022 school year, according to data published by the California Department of Public Health. For populations to be protected against measles through herd immunity, the CDC says more than 95% should be vaccinated.

Dr. Sruti Nadimpalli, a specialist in pediatric infectious diseases at Stanford University, said it’s concerning that the school has a history of low vaccination rates against measles, especially now that a child with measles was on site while infected for multiple days. 

“The level of immunity that’s required to prevent cases from developing [and] the virus from spreading is actually higher than we would think,” she said, referring to the 95% protection threshold. “87 [percent] is not good enough.”

State data also shows that overall immunization rates for kindergarteners at Redding Christian School — including for vaccines that prevent diseases like Polio and Hepatitis B — were consistently below the 95% threshold from the 2016-2017 school year — the earliest data shown — to the 2021-2022 school year. In the 2021-2022 school year, only 82.9% of the school’s kindergarteners were fully vaccinated with all of the required vaccines. 

Shasta County Health and Human Services Agency spokesperson Christopher Diamond told Shasta Scout in an email statement yesterday that all nine of the county’s measles cases have developed in minors, and they’re all either unvaccinated or have no history of vaccination. The initial exposure sites listed for the first eight cases did not include any schools, and it’s not publicly known whether those children were also students at Redding Christian School or not. 

Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease expert from the University of California San Francisco, said she’s been monitoring the measles outbreak in Shasta. She noted that vaccination rates are dropping across the country as parents are increasingly seeking exemptions for vaccines for their children amid misinformation that’s being spread by the Trump administration. 

“[It’s a] really disturbing time for anyone who’s an infectious disease and public health practitioner to see vaccine-preventable diseases resurge in the United States when we have a very safe and effective vaccine to prevent this,” Gandhi said. “We’re in a time of great misinformation and doubt being sowed by the administration.”

She also said she thinks Shasta’s Public Health Department — which has been encouraging people to get vaccinated and conducting contact tracing — is “doing all the right things” from what she can see. 

Despite state law, schools show history of insufficient vaccination rates

Low vaccination rates in schools raise concerns for disease experts because they lower protection against preventable diseases. They also bring into question schools’ compliance with California law. 

State law requires every student who goes to public or private school to receive immunizations for a specific set of diseases, including measles. In 2016, the state placed restrictions on what types of exemptions children could have for vaccinations, prohibiting exemptions for religious and/or personal reasons but continuing to allow exemptions for medical reasons. 

But it’s rare for a medical exemption to be granted. Nationwide, only about 0.2% of kindergarteners have medical exemptions. In California, 0.27% of kindergarteners were documented as having a medical exemption in 2021. 

Dr. Nadimpalli, the specialist with Stanford, said Redding Christian School’s historically low measles vaccination rate is alarming because it’s unlikely that all of the unvaccinated students have medical exemptions, something that’s required even in private schools. She said medical exemptions are typically only given to immunocompromised children, which usually only make up a very small percentage of a community. 

“To suggest that you only have 87% vaccination in that school, and 13% have a medical exemption, [that] seems a little bit higher than what I would expect in terms of the rate of immunocompromised children,” she said. “I think that does deserve a closer look, and that is part of what outbreak investigations should involve.” 

RCS’ Head of School Erika Piper said in an email statement yesterday that the organization will provide updates as appropriate and directed by the Shasta Public Health Department. 

“Our priority is the health and safety of students, staff, and families,” Piper said. “We are in contact with Public Health and we follow their guidance and recommendations regarding measles and other contagious illness outbreaks, including any steps related to vaccination guidance, exclusion periods, cleaning protocols, and notifications.”

Piper did not respond to specific questions about RCS’ current vaccination rates or the school’s compliance with California immunization laws. State agencies — such as the Department of Education and Department of Public Health — also did not answer questions about the private school’s history of relatively low vaccination rates and whether the state is looking into potential noncompliance. 

Schools can face consequences if they don’t comply with California’s immunization laws. Recent reporting by EdSource revealed that California schools lost more than $2.2 million in state funding over a two-year period because of inadequate vaccination rates.

What did other schools’ vaccination rates look like in 2021-2022? 

Redding Christian School isn’t the only school in Shasta County that had a measles vaccination rate below the 95% protection threshold as of the 2021-2022 school year. At the time, 17 out of 40 reported schools in Shasta County, or almost half, were under the 95% protection threshold for measles.

Shasta Scout analyzed the measles vaccination rates of some of the most populated schools in the county that year and is reaching out to the schools with questions about current vaccination rates.

Both Nadimpalli and Gandhi said it’s important that those who are unvaccinated against measles get updated with the vaccine. They explained that measles is one of the most contagious infectious diseases, causing unvaccinated people to have high vulnerability to the disease. 

Nadimpalli said South Carolina — which currently has almost 1,000 measles cases — has been seeing significant increases in measles vaccinations in response to the state’s outbreak. 

She added that the federal government is making matters worse by casting doubt on the safety of vaccines, leading to gaps in vaccine coverage. 

“We also need our leaders to provide a much more consistent endorsement of all childhood vaccines,” she said, “which have been repeatedly proven to be safe and effective.”

California joined over a dozen other states yesterday in suing the Trump administration — more specifically the Department of Health and Human Services, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Robert F. Kennedy — for reducing the number of immunizations recommended for children. 

Meanwhile in Shasta, Dr. James Mu, the county’s public health officer who was hired largely due to his stance against COVID-19 vaccine mandates, has been strongly encouraging people to get the measles vaccine.

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2.26.2026 11:15 a.m.: The graph included in this story was edited to correct the percentage of kindergarteners vaccinated against measles in school year 2021-2022 for Lassen View Elementary.

Do you have a correction to share? Email us: editor@shastascout.org.