In a sign of deepening concern in Sacramento over the fentanyl crisis, Gov. Newsom signed a raft of bills into law this month aimed at curbing deaths caused by the powerful opioid that killed a record 6,095 Californians last year.
The latest to be approved puts schools on notice. The bill authored by Democratic Sen. Dave Cortese of San Jose will require public and charter schools throughout the state to draft safety plans detailing how they will respond if one of their students suffers an opioid overdose on campus.
“For the first time, school site councils and school safety committees are going to be required to take on the fentanyl issue,” Cortese said. “The impact of this bill ultimately will be that it saves lives.”
The newly approved requirements, which will apply to both public and charter schools who serve students in 7th through 12th grade, stop short of mandating that schools make Narcan — a lifesaving drug that reverses opioid overdoses — available on campuses. However, Cortese said the new law does require that schools train staff on how to respond to an opioid overdose.
The bill was initially inspired by reporting last fall by the Bay Area News Group, which documented the staggering toll fentanyl was taking on young Californians and whether Bay Area schools were taking action.
The news organization surveyed 33 of the Bay Area’s largest school districts with high-school students last fall and again in March to see how many were prepared to respond to an overdosing student. In the latest survey, nearly 88% of the districts said they had stocked up on Narcan and/or trained their staffs on how to use it or had planned to do so by May.
Only four districts reported that they had no immediate plans to acquire Narcan or train staff on how to use it. But now, three of those four – Fremont Unified, Pleasanton Unified, and South San Francisco Unified – have told the Bay Area News Group that they have distributed Narcan at their schools and trained staff on how to administer it.
A spokesperson for the fourth district, San Jose Unified, said that there are “no current changes to the SJUSD’s Narcan policy.” The district relies on school resource police officers who carry Narcan and are stationed at “nearly all middle and high school campuses.” The district has also trained some nurses on how to administer Narcan, but it’s unclear — despite the news organization’s repeated inquiries since September — how many have been trained, or where those nurses are stationed.
The Santa Clara County Office of Education said it had no record of San Jose Unified getting Narcan through the county’s program, or of the district signing up for the county’s Narcan training.
Cortese spoke with SJUSD’s Superintendent Nancy Albarrán for about 40 minutes after the news organization reported in March that a Santa Clara Behavioral Health Services Department official was deeply concerned by the district’s reluctance to stock up on Narcan. Cortese said that having sporadic access to Narcan may not be enough to stop a child from dying.
Is a student opioid overdose “going to happen right next to the nurse’s station?” Cortese asked. “Maybe, but we can’t count on that. Is it going to happen out on the football field, or basketball court where it’s a coach (who has to respond)? Seconds — in this particular instance — seconds count.”
Last spring, a 3-month old infant, a 15-year-old girl and 16-year-old cheerleader all died of fentanyl poisoning in San Jose in less than 30 days. Although none of those overdoses occurred on school grounds, last October — within a 2-day span — school staff used Narcan at two schools in San Jose’s East Side Union High district to revive students who were overdosing.
Mandates that would have required California schools to stock up on Narcan were stricken from other bills or failed to make it out of the legislature this session.
California schools are required to submit their safety plans every year to their supervising district office by March 1. School districts then have until Oct. 15 to review each school’s plan, and must notify the California Department of Education of any schools that fail to meet the requirements — including now being prepared to respond to an opioid overdose.
Newsom also approved several other bills last week intended to address the fentanyl crisis more broadly across the state.
On the enforcement side, Newsom approved AB 701 by Stockton Democratic Assemblyman Carlos Villapudua, which will increase penalties for dealers caught with a large amount of fentanyl. AB 701’s approval will mean that large-scale fentanyl dealers could spend between three and 25 additional years behind bars, depending on how much of the lethal drug they possess.
California community colleges and state universities will now also be required to make fentanyl test strips available to students after AB 461 by Assemblyman James C. Ramos, a Highland Democrat, was signed into law last week. Fentanyl test strips can be used to check whether illicit drugs, such as counterfeit painkillers or stimulants like cocaine are laced with the synthetic opioid drug, though experts warn that test strips may fail to detect fentanyl when it is actually present.
And finally, SB 234 by state Sen. Anthony Portantino, a Burbank Democrat, will require that amusement parks, concert venues and stadiums keep two unexpired doses of Naloxone, the generic name for Narcan, onsite. An earlier provision that would have also required K-12 public schools to stock up on Naloxone was removed from the bill.
“It is crucial that we place Narcan in spaces frequently accessed by California’s youth, given the severe risk posed by our state’s growing opioid crisis,” Sen. Portantino said in a statement released after the bill’s signing. “This medication has the potential to save lives.”
