In general, “school districts have broad authority to determine how best to serve the interests and safety of students,” Michelle Mello, a professor of law and medicine at Stanford, said Thursday.

She noted that state law already requires students in schools to be vaccinated against many other infectious diseases to attend class. Youths and their families can request exemptions for medical reasons, but a broader exemption based on “personal” objections to vaccines was eliminated by state law in 2015.

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But Stanford’s Mello said federal emergency approval should be enough to withstand a legal challenge to a school’s vaccine mandate. And Reiss of UC Hastings said the federal government has allowed state and local officials to require vaccines that have been granted emergency approval.