Putting Narcan onto Tri-Valley school campuses

Discussions and policy updates aimed at curbing the growing risk of opioid deaths among young people have been focal points at all four Tri-Valley public school districts in recent months, with support for the increased availability of the overdose treatment Narcan being codified in several board policies.

Trustees at the San Ramon Valley Unified School District and Dublin Unified School District each voted last fall to approve policies requiring the medicine naloxone — typically known by the brand name Narcan — to be available on their campuses, joining the Livermore Valley Joint Unified School District among the public districts nationwide to keep the medication on hand in an effort to curb a rise in opioid overdose deaths among youth.

While the Pleasanton Unified School District has yet to implement a board policy for supplying and training district staff on the use of Narcan, that likely won't be the case for long, according to communications director Patrick Gannon.

"We are planning to bring forward a policy at an upcoming board meeting that would make Narcan available on school campuses along with staff training," Gannon said.

Although Gannon said it was unclear when exactly a board policy might be approved at PUSD, it was a top priority for the board and district officials in the coming months.

"It will definitely be this school year," Gannon said. "It will go before our board policy subcommittee first — these meeting agendas are posted publicly, so you may see it soon — and timing may depend on any feedback and revisions from there. I know fentanyl is a concern, but I'm not aware of any advocacy; it's something we feel is important to address, both proactively through education and support as well as reactively through the availability of Narcan."

However, PUSD campuses do have the treatment on hand as it stands, with school resource officers staffed by the Pleasanton Police Department carrying the overdose medication as part of the standard equipment and practice of the police department.

"Since the SROs are department employees, they get the same training and follow the same policy," PPD Sgt. Marty Billdt said. "Fortunately, there hasn't been a time where Narcan has been used at the schools by a Pleasanton police officer."

SRVUSD and DUSD trustees began discussions and approval of the medication at their campuses last October, in the wake of recently released data from the California Department of Public Health showing that 224 young people between ages 15 and 19 years old died in California during 2021 from opioid overdoses.

LVJUSD was the first district to approve carrying the treatment and training staff on its use in district high schools in November 2019, with the CDPH data from last October spurring them to institute the same measures for more of the district's campuses.

"We have Narcan available on all of our middle and high school campuses, including our TK-8 schools," said Michelle Dawson, community engagement coordinator at LVJUSD.

"Prior to this school year, Narcan was available on our high school campuses only, however, given the concerning statistics of fentanyl overdoses in younger students, we felt it was important to have Narcan available at all of our middle schools as well," she continued. "School nurses and administrators are trained to administer."

SROs at the district are also equipped with and trained on the use of Narcan, Dawson noted.

The same CDPH data that spurred LVJUSD to expand their Narcan policy beyond high school campuses, and the ensuing media conversations and concerns from parents and caregivers, also spurred DUSD and SRVUSD to rapidly discuss, approve and implement policies on the medicine last fall.

"We have been very proactive about this important life-saving medication being available at all schools," SRVUSD communications director Ilana Israel Samuels said.

"We had a tremendous response from staff to be trained, with about 230 staff members filling out the initial interest form — and it's an incredible variety of staff who volunteered to be trained, including office staff, teachers, campus supervisors, counselors, paraeducators, instructional assistants, custodians, site and district administrators, and more," she continued.

While school board meetings have been a growing site of controversial discussions and debates across the country, including at SRVUSD, Samuels said that the Narcan policy was one that had not been met with any substantial opposition before, during, or after the board discussion, approval and implementation process.

"We have really had no pushback at all," Samuels said. "I do recall there was one community member who talked during public comment at the board meeting about wanting to be able to give permission for such a life-saving measure to be used on her student, but that's all. And there was never any follow up on that concern, I believe because the staff member presenting, or it may have been (Superintendent) Malloy, explained that there is no health risk at all to giving someone Narcan, even if they are not actually overdosing. No one else ever said anything beyond providing support and applauding us for being proactive."

Jacqui Berlinn, a Livermore resident and co-founder of Mothers Against Drug Addiction and Deaths, said that while there were some misconceptions circulating about Narcan and its availability on K-12 campuses, its safety and effectiveness for the treatment of opioid overdose amid the growing rates of opioid addiction and death among young people has made it both a necessary and noncontroversial measure at schools.

"One of the myths is that it's going to make kids think it's normal and OK to use," Berlin said. "I just don't think that's the truth at all. It's just preventing someone from dying, and if anything it's a warning to the kids to know that the Narcan is there — that death is a very real possibility."

Berlinn also said the measure should serve as a wake-up call to parents, who she said are often all too under-informed about the risk of overdose deaths brought on by the increasing stream of illegal fentanyl production and distribution, with the potent, unregulated and potentially deadly drug finding its way into other substances more and more commonly.

"Kids are curious, and some kids see it as a rite of passage to try (drugs)," Berlinn said. "Unfortunately, our drug supply has been poisoned with fentanyl and it could be anything from marijuana and pills to cocaine to heroin — any of these things can be tainted with fentanyl even if someone's trying to avoid that and not take it."

Although the growing risk of overdoses and deaths among young people experimenting with drugs is worthy of the increase in attention and concern about fentanyl, according to Berlinn, she noted that there has been cause for concern, discussion and mitigation measures for much longer.

"It amazes me still that people aren't aware how prevalent this is," Berlinn said. "My son Corey, he tells me he sees younger and younger-aged kids coming into San Francisco on BART, buying drugs and heading back to the suburbs with them."

Berlinn's adult son, Corey Sylvester, is currently in the early stages of a detox and rehabilitation program to treat his fentanyl addiction, which has resulted in him living on the streets of San Francisco as Berlinn has sought to keep watch and offer support for his recovery from across the bay in Livermore.

"The kids that come right off the street, they just want to grab something, and they're not educated on it; they don't know what they're getting," Berlinn said. "They can ask for something that doesn't have fentanyl in it and it doesn't matter because a lot of the dealers don't even speak English. And they're going to sell what they have the most of, regardless."

In addition to witnessing and being concerned about the growing trend, Berlinn said that Sylvester had even found himself intervening recently when he watched a young suburban teenager purchase drugs he knew were tainted with fentanyl.

"My son approached him and told him that 'you need to get rid of that; that's not what you think it is,' and if my son hadn't seen him and he'd taken it back and partied with friends, it could have been deadly," Berlin said.

While the risk from opioid overdose death has grown in recent years, Berlinn emphasized that it is nothing new, with Sylvester having had his first experiences with drugs as a high school student growing up in the Tri-Valley before landing on the city streets with a debilitating addiction approximately a decade ago.

In addition to the potentially life-saving effects of having Narcan available on campuses, Berlinn said that she hoped the measure would spur increased scrutiny and discussions surrounding the issue for parents.

"When they hear that Narcan is being put into the schools, they'll wake up and say why? And they can get educated on it if they don't know," Berlinn said.

In addition to drawing concern from parents, caregivers and school officials, the rising trend of opioid addiction and overdose deaths among young people has meant discussion and advocacy among students.

"The topic was brought to a Student Senate meeting in fall, where students expressed they believed Narcan is needed to protect students," Samuels said. "They also believed strongly that students need to be educated."

Advocacy from young people was also on display at DUSD in recent months, according to district spokesperson Chip Dehnert.

"On Thursday, March 30th, the National Coalition Against Prescription Drug Abuse partnered with Dublin and Valley high schools to host a community education event spotlighting Tri-Valley students who are members of NCAPDA's Youth Ambassador team," Dehnert said. "DUSD teens presented critical, life-saving information about prescription drug and fentanyl safety."

With PUSD trustees expected to approve and implement the use of Narcan by school nurses and other staff members by the end of the current school year, public K-12 districts throughout the Tri-Valley are set to be stocked with Narcan and behind educational and outreach efforts to inform school communities about the use of the treatment and the risk of overdose deaths.