Naloxone is used to treat opioid overdoses.
At this week’s meeting, the Board of Education unanimously voted to allow naloxone at Moorestown High School to treat potential opioid overdoses. School nurse Lisa Walko pitched the proposal to the board in the wake of the heroin epidemic.
Opioids don’t just include heroin, though. Walko emphasized many kids are obtaining opioids from their medicine cabinet in the form of prescription pain medication.
“The body does not differentiate whether the drug is from a prescription or from heroin,” Walko said. “An opioid is an opioid.”
According to Walko, the number of prescriptions written for opioid pain relievers increased from 76 million in 1991 to 207 million in 2013, and one in four teens have admitted to taking a prescription drug for a reason other than its intended purpose.
“No one grows up saying, ‘I am going to become a person with a substance use disorder,’” Walko said. “We know that some of it is stress, we know that some of it is personality, we also know that some of it is genetic.”
Overdose of opioids causes decreased respiration, and, if not reversed, death will follow quickly. A person’s condition can progress from unconsciousness to death in as little as three minutes. That’s where the naloxone comes in.
Naloxone reverses the effects of opioids in emergency situations and can be administered through an injection or nasal mist.
“Naloxone is considered a very safe drug,” Walko said. “It is extremely important to know that if a person has not overdosed but somebody thinks they have and you deliver the [naloxone,] you are not harming them.”
Walko attended a training course for naloxone last summer and is now certified to administer the antidote. While she says she’d like to see the drug brought to every school in the district, she feels the high school is the place to start.
Training will start with school nurses and will extend to athletic trainers and coaches. Walko says a dose of naloxone costs $50, but she expects the price to rise as more schools begin to allow it.
Signs a child is abusing opioids include a change in the child’s peer group, a change in eating habits, behavioral problems and a deteriorating relationship with friends and family.
In other news:
• Multiple teachers showed up to the board meeting to express their concerns with the possibility of changing the structure for parent teacher conferences.
“The current structure is the best structure that works best for our students, our staff and our parents,” first-grade teacher Bridget B. Potts said. “It’s a highly productive use of time.”
Potts added that on top of providing parents with information at the conferences, parents often have additional questions, requiring even more time from the teachers.
“It’s not only a time to discuss their overall academic performance along with their development and progress, it’s also to provide parents with support and areas of things they may want to extend,” Potts said.
Third-grade teacher Cicely Fegley agreed, emphasizing the time put into not only attending the conferences, but preparing for them.
“The work involved is not just our daily record keeping and grades, but the breaking apart and evaluating,” Fegley said. “Change can be good, but not at the expense of parent teacher communications that are essential and make Moorestown an exceptional school district.”
• The Moorestown High School student body presented a check for $1,500 to Mercy High School founder Peter Gamula, who traveled all the way from Africa to accept the donation.
• The district recognized eighth-grade students Caroline Brinkman and Fraser Gaffney for their achievement of being named distinguished writers in the Letters About Literature national competition. Out of 2,000 applicants, only 20 were selected as distinguished students.
• The next Board of Education meeting will be held on Tuesday, April 25 at 7 p.m. in the William W. Allen Middle School.
