Fentanyl in Stanislaus County schools? Here’s what educators are doing about it

As Stanislaus County continues to see an increase in fentanyl use and overdoses, school districts are working to ensure students have access to the lifesaving medicine naloxone.

Naloxone, also packaged as Narcan or Evzio, is an opioid medication that is used to rapidly reverse an opioid overdose, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The FDA-approved medicine can reverse and block the effects of opioids including heroin, morphine, oxycodone and fentanyl.

After administering the medicine, it’s still important to call 911 for assistance.

Modesto City Schools has multiple doses of naloxone available at each school site, obtained from the California Department of Health Care Services’ Naloxone Distribution Project. The district has stocked the medicine for a year.

While the district cannot confirm how many students have overdosed on its campuses, it did confirm that in the last year, school staff has used naloxone on students believed to have been suffering from an opioid overdose.

“Because naloxone can be the difference between life and death for someone experiencing an opioid overdose, we want to ensure we have all the available tools to keep students safe,” said Linda Mumma Solorio, the district’s public information officer.

Not every staff member on a campus is taught how to administer naloxone, Solorio said, but there is free training available for those interested. Some staff members, including school safety officers are required to learn how to administer the medicine.

“Fentanyl is the unknown enemy that we know a lot about, but we don’t know how to fight,” said the school district’s health services director, Tom Nipper. “Fentanyl is found in so many different products like legal drugs in hospitals and healthcare, but in illegal areas as well that you really don’t know that it’s present because it’s not advertised as a presence.”

At Turlock Unified School District, officials said they are not aware of any toxicology reports that confirm a student overdose. The district has carried naloxone on its elementary and secondary school sites for a year.

The TUSD health staff has been trained on how to administer the medicine. The district plans to expand this training to interested staff at all its schools.

“Currently, three to four Stanislaus County residents are dying every week from suspected drug-related overdose and accidental poisoning deaths,” said Marie Russell, director of communications at Turlock Unified. “Narcan in schools is an important harm reduction measure that is part of TUSD’s overall plan to provide safe and supportive school environments for students and staff.”

Last year, the California Legislature proposed a bill that would require public schools to keep two doses of naloxone. The bill is currently in committee.

According to the California Overdose Surveillance Dashboard, approximately 6,100 Californians died from fentanyl overdoses in 2022, including 170 people age 19 or younger. This number slightly dropped from 2021, when around 246 people in that age group died from a fentanyl overdose.

“Fentanyl deaths accounted for more than 80% of all drug-related deaths among California’s young people in 2021,” wrote Tony Thurmond, state superintendent, in an October 2022 letter. “Most of our young victims ingested fentanyl accidentally, thinking they were using something less dangerous. It is the fastest growing cause of death for young people in our state, and we must lean in and confront this drug crisis now.”

This story was originally published October 25, 2023 at 8:36 AM.

Taylor Johnson

The Modesto Bee

Taylor Johnson covers education and general assignment for The Modesto Bee. Originally from Las Vegas, she received her master’s in journalism at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism in New York and got her bachelor’s degree at the University of Nevada, Reno. She also previously worked as a substitute at Clark County School District.