How often are students overdosing at school in FCPS HS? Is the problem overblown by media?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If there is really a problem brewing within a school they can have a community meeting without sending out incident reports. Madison did this years ago when they were noticing more drug use at the school (this predates the opioid crisis by quite a while).

What does the body count need to be to trigger a meeting like the one at your school? If the grapevine at ours is correct there have been a few at our school, a couple for sure.

Now that I think about it the forums were coordinated by a group called the Vienna-Madison Community Coalition. It was distinct from the school. There was tension with the school leadership because the principal at the time (not the current one) went out of his way to downplay the issues. Part of the frustration in the community was the belief that Madison wouldn't write kids up for any type of infraction because they were so concerned about the school's image and were especially lenient if the kids were athletes. So the parents were the ones pressing the school administrators to crack down so they'd know what was going on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think we have all been told ad nauseam that overdoses are happening in students across all our schools (if not on campus, among all student populations).

If a school sends home a letter that a student overdosed in a bathroom that day and was taken by ambulance for treatment, anyone who saw a student being taken away in an ambulance now has that student's personal medical info and their privacy has been compromised. See why that can't be done?

No, I don’t.

+1 Poster made no sense. If everyone sees the kid carted out, then privacy is already compromised. Would you say if the kid had been shot? Drugs are killing more teens than guns in schools.

Now there’s a shocking wake-up call.

DRUGS are KILLING way more teens
than guns are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If there is really a problem brewing within a school they can have a community meeting without sending out incident reports. Madison did this years ago when they were noticing more drug use at the school (this predates the opioid crisis by quite a while).

What does the body count need to be to trigger a meeting like the one at your school? If the grapevine at ours is correct there have been a few at our school, a couple for sure.

Now that I think about it the forums were coordinated by a group called the Vienna-Madison Community Coalition. It was distinct from the school. There was tension with the school leadership because the principal at the time (not the current one) went out of his way to downplay the issues. Part of the frustration in the community was the belief that Madison wouldn't write kids up for any type of infraction because they were so concerned about the school's image and were especially lenient if the kids were athletes. So the parents were the ones pressing the school administrators to crack down so they'd know what was going on.

Good for them! I think other schools like ours downplay it for a different group, but it shouldn’t matter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anytime an ambulance is rushed to a school, parents should be notified. No personal info needs to be given.

As a teacher, I don’t even know every time an ambulance comes to my high school. Often I hear later that a staff member or student had an issue and often I’m sure I don’t hear at all. It’s a big school and most calls are not drug related. I don’t know if any over doses that have happened in my school. I’m not naive and know they could.

When I was younger, a kid died at our school. We had a school-wide counseling session and lots of talk about it - and that was just a brain aneurysm. When another kids' brother died of a drug overdose, we talked about drugs and why they are bad and mourned together as a school community. When we moved back from overseas, I told my kids "you will see, public schools here are the heart of the community. They will help you make friends and you will spend lots of time at school because you want to be doing activities and things." It couldn't have been more different. Not sure what has changed, but public schools are the farthest thing from the heart of the community these days.

100% this. A kid in our school was driving drunk and killed himself and his two passengers. The school gave out a ton of information, provided support and counseling, and most importantly, really spent the next year focused on drunk driving and alcohol education efforts. That just doesn't happen anymore. We focus on test scores and only test scores now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anytime an ambulance is rushed to a school, parents should be notified. No personal info needs to be given.

As a teacher, I don’t even know every time an ambulance comes to my high school. Often I hear later that a staff member or student had an issue and often I’m sure I don’t hear at all. It’s a big school and most calls are not drug related. I don’t know if any over doses that have happened in my school. I’m not naive and know they could.

When I was younger, a kid died at our school. We had a school-wide counseling session and lots of talk about it - and that was just a brain aneurysm. When another kids' brother died of a drug overdose, we talked about drugs and why they are bad and mourned together as a school community. When we moved back from overseas, I told my kids "you will see, public schools here are the heart of the community. They will help you make friends and you will spend lots of time at school because you want to be doing activities and things." It couldn't have been more different. Not sure what has changed, but public schools are the farthest thing from the heart of the community these days.

100% this. A kid in our school was driving drunk and killed himself and his two passengers. The school gave out a ton of information, provided support and counseling, and most importantly, really spent the next year focused on drunk driving and alcohol education efforts. That just doesn't happen anymore. We focus on test scores and only test scores now.

Depressing. I feel like we’ve lost a lot of our humanity.

[Anonymous]

could the number of Narcan nasal injections or something like that be a proxy for OD cases in the district? Each FCPS school now has a stock of it.

[Anonymous]

Arlington County is considering making fentanyl test strips available in every high school and middle school. The idea is very similar to how schools provide free condoms to prevent STDs and teen pregnancy.

[Anonymous]

How exactly would test strips be used?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Arlington County is considering making fentanyl test strips available in every high school and middle school. The idea is very similar to how schools provide free condoms to prevent STDs and teen pregnancy.

What are these strips testing? The drugs before they are invested or people who may have ingested drugs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Arlington County is considering making fentanyl test strips available in every high school and middle school. The idea is very similar to how schools provide free condoms to prevent STDs and teen pregnancy.

What are these strips testing? The drugs before they are invested or people who may have ingested drugs?

Ingested bit invested!

[Anonymous]

OMG. This????

https://www.cdc.gov/stopoverdose/fentanyl/fentanyl-test-strips.html

It still doesn’t deal with the pre-fentynal opioid issues (ODs) in schools. This means schools care only about fentynal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OMG. This????

https://www.cdc.gov/stopoverdose/fentanyl/fentanyl-test-strips.html

It still doesn’t deal with the pre-fentynal opioid issues (ODs) in schools. This means schools care only about fentynal.

Adding that I have to chuckle at the idea that MS or HS kids doing this.

[Anonymous]

All FCPS have Narcan and staff trained to administer it.

Even elementary schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All FCPS have Narcan and staff trained to administer it.

Even elementary schools.

Yes, so can we get numbers on how often it is administered?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All FCPS have Narcan and staff trained to administer it.

Even elementary schools.

Yes, so can we get numbers on how often it is administered?

I haven’t heard of any ES using stock Narcan yet.