AB 2651 Threatens Student Privacy and Parental Rights
Take Action Now: Tell the Senate Appropriations Committee to Vote NO on AB 2651
Urgent Action Needed: Oppose AB 2651
Dear PERK Members,
AB 2651, also known as the Informed Parents, Healthy Schools Act, is moving forward in the California Legislature. After passing the Senate Health Committee and the Senate Education Committee, it is now headed to the Senate Appropriations Committee on Wednesday, August 3rd at 10am.
This bill may sound like a simple parent notification measure, but in reality, AB 2651 opens the door to greater state control, student surveillance, privacy concerns, and government-driven vaccine messaging inside California schools.
AB 2651 would require schools to notify parents when the California Department of Public Health determines that a school’s immunization rate has fallen below a state-established threshold. PERK strongly opposes this bill because it risks turning school immunization rates into a tool for pressure, stigma, and discrimination against families with lawful medical exemptions or children who are not fully vaccinated.
Why PERK Opposes AB 2651
AB 2651 threatens the privacy rights of families and students. Even if the bill relies on deidentified school-level information, deidentification is not enough to protect students in smaller schools, classrooms, private schools, or close-knit communities. Families may be easily identified, blamed, targeted, or discriminated against because of private medical decisions or lawful exemptions.
This bill also creates a state-driven vaccine information campaign under the appearance of transparency. Rather than providing balanced education about immunity, vaccine limitations, waning immunity, adverse events, natural immunity, medical exemptions, and informed consent, AB 2651 empowers the state to push one-sided messaging through schools.
The bill also relies on immunization thresholds established by CDPH, but those thresholds are not clearly defined in the bill. The Legislature should not delegate broad authority to an agency to determine disease-by-disease rates that can trigger school-wide notices without clear safeguards, legislative accountability, or protections for students and families.
AB 2651 also fails to address real-world vaccine limitations, including waning immunity, mutations, suppressed symptoms, asymptomatic transmission, and vaccine failure. For example, pertussis outbreaks can occur even in highly vaccinated populations. Students vaccinated with DTaP may still become infected, may have reduced or suppressed symptoms, and may contribute to transmission without being easily identified. This undermines the idea that a school’s vaccination rate alone tells the full story about disease risk.
The reality is that children and adults can be vaccinated according to the CDC-recommended schedule and still contract vaccine-targeted diseases such as pertussis, influenza, mumps, measles, and others. Any policy that claims to inform parents must also honestly address waning immunity, breakthrough infections, vaccine injury, adverse events, natural immunity, and the importance of informed consent.
California families do not need another school-based mechanism for pressure, surveillance, or medical discrimination. They need privacy, equal access to education, parental rights, and honest information.
AB 2651 will be heard in the Senate Appropriations Committee in August. If it passes out of the committee, it would move to the Senate floor.
Please take action today: https://bit.ly/opposeab2651
Send an official opposition letter to the Senate Appropriations Committee. Letter instructions for submission through the portal.
Call the Senate Appropriations Committee members and urge them to vote NO.
Share this alert with every parent, grandparent, educator, medical freedom advocate, and concerned Californian you know.
Message to Committee Members:
“Please hold the bill AB 2651. This bill would create burdensome costs to the state, while also threatening student privacy, risks targeting families with exemptions, expands state control over private medical decisions, and turns schools into vehicles for government-driven vaccine messaging. California students deserve privacy, equal access to education, and protection from stigma and discrimination. We ask the Appropriations Committee to hold the bill”
PERK will continue fighting to protect parental rights, medical freedom, student privacy, and equal access to education.
In freedom,
Amy Bohn
President, PERK
EXAMPLE ADVOCACY LETTER FOR PERK MEMBERS TO SEND
RE: Oppose AB 2651 — Informed Parents, Healthy Schools Act
Dear Members of the Senate Appropriations Committee,
I respectfully urge you to hold the bill AB 2651, the Informed Parents, Healthy Schools Act.
While AB 2651 is being presented as a parent notification measure, it raises serious concerns regarding student privacy, family medical confidentiality, equal access to education, and government overreach into deeply personal medical decisions. It will add burdensome financial costs on California schools.
AB 2651 would require schools to notify parents when the California Department of Public Health determines that a school’s immunization rate has fallen below a rate established by the department. In practice, this risks creating pressure, stigma, and division within school communities, especially for families with children who have lawful medical exemptions or who are not fully vaccinated.
Even if information is presented in a deidentified manner, deidentification does not adequately protect students and families in smaller schools, private schools, classrooms, or communities where families may be easily identified. Once a school is flagged, families may be blamed, targeted, or discriminated against because of private medical decisions or valid exemptions recognized under California law.
AB 2651 also delegates too much authority to CDPH. The bill allows the department to establish immunization rates that would trigger school notices, but the bill does not provide clear legislative guardrails, transparency, or accountability for how those thresholds would be determined. Core policy decisions affecting parental rights, educational access, student privacy, and medical choice should not be left open-ended to an agency.
This bill also fails to provide financial assessments of the burdensome implementation.
California should not pass legislation that increases financial burdens on the schools, expands agency control, or risks targeting students based on medical status or exemption status.
For these reasons, I respectfully urge you to hold the bill AB 2651 and not allow it to move out of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Sincerely,
[Your Name]
[City], California
[Optional: Parent / Grandparent / Educator / Concerned Citizen]
