East Texas Schools Close as Illness Spreads "High student absence rates associated with a flu-like illness spreading in East Texas have prompted several small districts to shut down. Gilmer Independent School District, located about 30 miles northeast of Tyler, closed Monday after 601 of its students had been sent home by the end of the school day with flulike symptoms. "In my 20 years of school, I have never seen a district close, but then again I have never seen this kind of sickness either," Gilmer Superintendent Rick Albrigton said in today's editions of the Tyler Morning Telegraph."