The St. Vrain Valley School District is revising its policy to allow for the availability and use of a medication to treat opioid overdoses if the need arises.
A state program can provide school districts with opioid antagonists for free. Naloxone, known by the brand name Narcan, is a nasal spray that reverses the effects of an overdose.
The St. Vrain school board felt that with the growing fentanyl crisis and increasing number of overdoses statewide, it would be prudent to be prepared if such an incident arose. However, the school board needed to pass a policy revision to accommodate the availability and emergency use of opioid antagonists.
On Wednesday, the school board approved the first reading of policy adjustments related to the administration of medications to students and emergency care. The policy requires a second approval before it can become official.
The policy changes outline the specific use of opiate antagonists in emergency situations, along with deleting a paragraph that required parent/guardian authorization to administer medication in the event of an emergency. Parent/guardian approval for the administration of other, non-emergency medications is still required.
The Narcan would be given by a member of the school’s safety team. Staff would also be trained on how to administer the medication.
Superintendent Don Haddad emphasized that even if Narcan is mistakenly administered to a student who doesn’t need it, they wouldn’t be harmed.
“We felt like it would be important to have it on hand in the event that we needed to administer it, but it was important to us to make sure that there would be no physical issue or damage done to the student if they had it administered and somehow it was mis-administered or not needed,” Hadded told the board.
Additionally, the use of Narcan would not be restricted to only students but available to staff and any others present on a St. Vrain campus.
District staff are currently applying to get the medication, which would be provided by the state free of cost, and plan to have it available at all locations.
