When a measles outbreak hit West Texas earlier this year, school absences surged to levels far beyond the number of children who likely became sick, according to a study, as students were excluded or kept home by their families to minimize the spread of the disease.
Absences in Seminole Independent School District, a school system that served students at the heart of the outbreak, climbed 41% across all grade levels compared with the same period the two previous years, according to the Stanford University study.
The preliminary study, which has not been published or undergone a formal peer review, offers a glimpse at the toll on student learning from the spread of measles, a highly contagious disease that has crept up in communities around the U.S. with low vaccination rates. In Texas and nationally, about two-thirds of measles cases have been among unvaccinated children. When measles is spreading, public health officials respond by excluding unvaccinated students from schools.
“The costs of that absenteeism are just not among the sick kids, but all the kids who are kept out of school as a precaution,” said Thomas Dee, a Stanford economist and education professor who co-authored the study.
Measles is airborne and poses severe risk for young children. In 2000, the illness was declared eradicated in the U.S., thanks to the widespread usage of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine. In recent years, more parents have sought exemptions to school requirements for the shots, and most states are below the 95% kindergarten vaccination rate that experts say is needed to prevent outbreaks.
In Seminole Independent School District, only 77% of kindergartners were vaccinated against measles in the 2024-2025 school year, according to state health department data. The measles upsurge there launched the United States’ worst measles year in more than three decades, sickening 762 people across Texas in seven months.
That number could have been even higher, as the Texas Department of State Health Services says there were an additional 182 potential measles cases reported in March 2025 among children in surrounding Gaines County that the state excluded from its count due to lack of information.
Absenteeism extended far beyond confirmed measles cases
The study estimated based on state data that 141 Seminole district students had confirmed measles cases. It found the increase in school absences was approximately 10 times what would be expected from just those students.
State health officials recommend that people sick with measles or suspected measles isolate at home until four days after they get the telltale rash. State guidance calls for unvaccinated or otherwise vulnerable students to be excluded from school for up to 21 days after exposure to measles.
Children from preschool to first grade had the most pronounced spike in absences — a 71% increase from the last two school years, according to the study.
Most student absences amid the outbreak were due to local health requirements for children to stay out of school if they may have been exposed to somebody diagnosed with measles, Seminole Superintendent Glen Teal said in a statement.
Beyond the students who were directed to stay home, it’s unclear how many families may have kept children out of school on their own as a precaution. But there’s a good argument that parental concern played a role, said Jacob Kirksey, a Texas Tech University education policy professor who was not involved in the study but reviewed it.
“If you’re hearing on the news or you’re seeing that there is just an illness outbreak more broadly, the parents are going to be predispositioned to just be more hesitant to send their kids to school,” he said.
Other states with outbreaks see many kids miss school
Outbreaks in other states, such as South Carolina, also have produced spikes in school absenteeism.
More than 165 people — including 127 students from three schools — were in a 21-day quarantine as of Tuesday because they were unvaccinated or otherwise vulnerable to getting sick. Some children have been quarantined twice due to new cases, said Dr. Linda Bell, state epidemiologist for the South Carolina Department of Public Health.
“Vaccination continues to be the best way to prevent the disruption that measles is causing to people’s education, to employment and other factors of people’s lives in our communities,” Bell said.
Missing out on learning time can have long-term implications for a child’s success. Schools have been dealing with learning loss from the COVID-19 pandemic, which contributed also to elevated rates of chronic absenteeism.
More frequent absenteeism also puts a strain on teachers’ ability to educate their students. Most educators aren’t trained on how to handle instructional pacing when a large chunk of their students are absent, Kirksey said.
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