A private school in Fort Worth is proud of its low vaccination rates — it even put it on a T-shirt.
Mercy Culture Preparatory Academy had a measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination rate of 14.29% among kindergartners in the 2023-2024 school year, the lowest in the state, according to Texas Department of State Health Services data. Mercy Culture pastor Landon Schott, whose church is associated with the school, celebrated these numbers in an Instagram post on Wednesday. After a school board meeting, Schott showed off balloons and a T-shirt printed with “#1 School in Texas for Least Amount of Vaccinations,” which he received as a “surprise gift.”
“They’re not allowing the government or science projects to affect how you live and lead your life,” Schott said in the Instagram video. “I know the entire world was shut down with insanity and people were fired from their jobs for forced vaccinations, and freedom is something we take seriously.”
Mercy Culture Prep’s MMR vaccination rates are well below the 91.52% coverage in Tarrant County. Most North Texas schools and districts have vaccination rates above 75%, according to WFAA. Only around 62 North Texas schools had a 100% vaccination rate among kindergartners in the 2023-2024 school year.
Texas is the epicenter of measles outbreaks nationwide, with 198 confirmed cases in West Texas as of March 7. Eighty cases were not vaccinated, and 113 have an unknown vaccination status. A school-aged, unvaccinated child in Lubbock was recorded as the first measles death in the country this year. In North Texas, there is one confirmed case in Rockwall County. Medical experts assert that immunization is the best way to prevent measles.
Measles is “probably the most infectious contagious disease on the planet,” said Dr. Suzanne Whitworth, division chief of pediatric infectious diseases at Cook Children’s in Fort Worth, in a previous interview with WFAA. “We know that about 40% of kids under the age of five who get measles are gonna wind up in the hospital, and nobody wants that.”
Read more at WFAA.
Editor’s Note: This story was updated with new information from the Texas Department of State Health Services on the vaccination status of individuals with confirmed measles cases.
