Poll: Majority of California voters favor school mask mandates, vaccination requirements

Almost two-thirds of California voters support requiring teachers and students to wear masks in schools and adding the COVID-19 vaccine to a list of required inoculations for school, according to a new poll.

The new poll, released Thursday from the Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, found that 64% of registered voters approve of adding the COVID-19 vaccine to a list of required immunizations for K-12 schools, and 65% of voters approve of requiring students and teachers to wear masks in schools this year.

Pollsters found that opinions on these policies are “highly partisan” and “tied to the political ideology of voters.” According to the poll results, 73% of “strongly conservative” voters disapproved of adding the COVID-19 vaccine to a required list of immunizations, while 92% of “strongly liberal” voters were in favor.

The divide was similar when voters were asked about masking in schools – 75% of “strongly conservative” voters disapproved of requiring masks, while 92% of “strongly liberal” voters approved of the policy.

Despite divides on certain policies aimed at reducing the spread of COVID-19 in schools, 72% of voters believed that the quality of education in their local school districts got worse during the pandemic. The poll found that voters had mixed feelings about how their own local school districts handled issues related to the pandemic, with 44% of voters disapproving, 37% of voters approving and 19% having no opinion.

“These results suggest that while concerns about the impact of Covid on education span all major voter subgroups, big partisan differences remain when voters are asked how schools should respond to the pandemic,” IGS Co-Director Eric Schickler said in a statement.

The polling results come as California is expected to make several policy changes related to handling COVID-19 in schools.

The state is expected to provide an update on Monday regarding its recommendations on masking schools. During a briefing last week, Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly said the state would assess several factors when updating its school masking policy, including its case rates, hospitalizations and vaccination rates.

“Masking requirements were never put in place to be there forever,” Ghaly said last Monday. “It’s not a question of if, it’s a question of when.”

The state will also consider several policy changes related to COVID-19 vaccination requirements in schools in the upcoming months.

In October, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that the state would add the COVID-19 vaccine to a list of required vaccines for K-12 schools once the vaccine receives full FDA approval. Parents would have the option to opt out of the requirement with a medical, religious or personal exemption. The mandate would take effect in the term after the vaccine was FDA-approved – either Jan. 1 or July 1 – to give students time to be fully vaccinated.

In the time since Newsom’s announcement, a state legislator, Sen. Richard Pan, D-Sacramento, brought forth another proposal that would require all medically-able students to get the COVID-19 vaccine to attend in-person learning. The bill would add the COVID-19 vaccine to a list of required inoculations and would take away the option of personal belief exemptions.

“Students in California are currently required to be vaccinated from many serious diseases to prevent their spread in schools and communities,” Pan said during a news conference in January. “Given the tragically high number of people, including children and teens, who suffered death and disability from COVID-19, we must make sure our students are vaccinated against COVID as well.”

The Berkeley IGS Poll was administered online during the week of Feb. 3-10 and polled 8,937 registered voters. The margin of error is 2%.