Updated

Updated · WBAP News/Talk · Aug 14

Irving ISD Urges 10th-12th Graders to Get TB Tests After 2025-26 MacArthur Exposure

Updated

Updated · WBAP News/Talk · Aug 14

Irving ISD Urges 10th-12th Graders to Get TB Tests After 2025-26 MacArthur Exposure

Q: With TB requiring prolonged indoor exposure, what links the upperclassmen at MacArthur High while leaving incoming freshmen completely safe?

The most likely link is simple: the students being urged to test are the ones who were physically at MacArthur during the 2025–26 school year, when the possible exposure occurred. Incoming freshmen were not yet on campus, so officials say they had no school-based exposure tied to this investigation. That fits how tuberculosis spreads. TB usually requires prolonged indoor contact with someone who has active TB disease, especially in enclosed or poorly ventilated spaces. If the concern stems from time spent in classrooms, shared programs, athletics, fine arts, or other campus settings last year, returning sophomores, juniors and seniors would be the group with possible overlap. New ninth-graders would not. Officials have not released the exact time, place, source case, or number of people potentially exposed, so the public cannot yet see the precise chain of contact. But the grade cutoff strongly suggests the recommendation is based on attendance during the prior school year, not on age or biological risk. The testing push is also aimed at finding latent TB infection, which causes no symptoms and is not contagious but can later become active if untreated. A skin test or blood test can detect infection, though a positive result would still need follow-up, such as a chest X-ray, to determine whether disease is active. So the answer appears to be prior on-campus presence: upperclassmen were there during the possible exposure window; incoming freshmen were not.

3 articles · Updated · WBAP News/Talk · Aug 14

Irving ISD is strongly recommending tuberculosis tests for MacArthur High students returning as 10th-, 11th- or 12th-graders if they were not already tested.
Dallas County Health and Human Services is investigating a possible exposure that occurred sometime during the 2025-26 school year, though officials have not said when or where on campus it happened.
Incoming freshmen are not included in the recommendation, and the district is offering tests even though neither county nor state health authorities require them.
Health officials said the public risk remains low, but the testing push aims to detect latent TB—inactive infections that cause no symptoms and are not contagious but can later become active.