LOS ANGELES _ The vaccination rate for California's kindergartners jumped this fall from the previous year, with the percentage of students with all required vaccinations rising to 96 percent from 93 percent.
It was the highest vaccination rate among kindergartners since 2001, the California Department of Public Health said.
The increase comes after Gov. Jerry Brown in 2015 signed into law one of the most far-reaching vaccination laws in the nation, barring exemptions from inoculations for incoming schoolchildren based on a parent's personal beliefs.
Brown's action came after California endured the worst measles outbreak in years, which started in Disneyland in 2014 and quickly spread across the West, infecting 150 people.
The new data show that the percentage of kindergartners with the two required doses also jumped to 97.3 percent, up from about 94.5 percent the year before. Experts say a measles vaccination rate of greater than 95 percent is ideal to prevent an outbreak of measles.
