Absences at Texas School District Spiked 41 Percent After Measles Outbreak, Says Hoover Scholar

Hoover Institution (Stanford, CA) - A West Texas school district that experienced a measles outbreak saw school absences climb by 41 percent and remain high for months afterward, demonstrating immense educational impact of preventable illnesses on communities with low rates of immunization, new research by a Hoover scholar shows.

The research was conducted by Thomas Dee, Robert and Marion Oster Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Barnett Family Professor at Stanford University's Graduate School of Education (GSE), alongside Sofia Wilson, a doctoral student at the GSE.

In January 2025, the community of Gaines County, Texas, saw its first confirmed measles infections as a part of a wave of measles outbreaks across the nation, primarily impacting communities with lower-than-average vaccination coverage.

By January 30, local public health officials issued an alert after several students tested positive for measles.

Comparing the attendance data from the largest school system in that county, the Seminole Independent School District, with data from the same period in the previous two school years, Dee and Wilson found 41 percent more absences in 2025 compared with prior years.

Among pre-K and kindergarten students, absences were 71 percent higher in 2025. Among high school students, absences were 25 percent higher.

"These sharp increases indicate the disruptions measles outbreaks create for students, schools, and parents extend well beyond those who become infected," Dee said.

Local health officials asked students with rashes appearing on their skin to isolate at home for four days. Researchers multiplied that number of days by the likely number cases among pupils in Gaines (141) to calculate "at most 564 lost student-days among known measles cases."

However, the actual number of absences was more than ten times that, about 5,800 lost student-days of school. Absences in local schools remained above the baseline of the two previous years all the way until the end of the school year.

Authors found that at the peak of the outbreak in Gaines County, approximately 20 percent of all students enrolled in the district were absent. Such absences cost pupils lost instructional time, disrupt the lesson pacing of teachers, and can generate negative mental health outcomes in youth.

"The recent spread of measles adds to the lingering challenges of addressing learning loss and high chronic absenteeism in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic," Dee said.

Between January and late November of 2025, nearly 1,800 cases of laboratory-confirmed measles have been recorded in the United States, exceeding the total of any year in the past three decades.

The first measles vaccine became available in 1963, subsequent versions of the vaccine were administered widely, with the Centers for Disease Control declaring the disease eliminated in 2000.

About one in four cases of measles requires hospitalization. In children, one to three cases per thousand are fatal, according to the CDC.

Public health officials attribute this recent outbreak to continued decline in overall measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccinations below the 95 percent threshold that scientists consider necessary to achieve "herd immunity" status, where the introduction of the virus will not lead to significant spread.

Dee and Wilson say the experience in Gaines County illustrates the scale of the learning disruption caused by outbreaks of vaccine-preventable illness in communities with low vaccine coverage.

This finding builds on Dee's existing body of research examining the concerning trend of declining school attendance in the United States since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the localized impact of immigration raids on school attendance.

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For coverage opportunities, contact Jeffrey Marschner, 202-760-3187, [email protected] .