PENDLETON — The Oregon Health Authority is helping to tackle a growing issue affecting young people across the state — the skyrocketing rate of opioid overdoses.

The agency will offer free opioid overdose reversal kits to middle and high schools throughout the state, expanding an initiative originally launched in 2020 that has distributed harm reduction supplies to more than 280 organizations and agencies statewide.

The new emphasis by Save Lives Oregon focuses on middle schools, high schools, colleges and universities. The initiative is offering three free kits of naloxone, an opioid overdose reversal medication, to schools that serve children at least 7 years old. Each wall-mounted kit contains eight doses.

During the La Grande-based Center for Human Development Narcan giveaway event in September, Lisa Whipple, CHD’s substance abuse coordinator, said naloxone needs to be more readily available.

“In my professional and personal opinions everyone should have (naloxone) on their person due to the prevalence of fentanyl in the community,” she said.

Opioids and stimulants were the main types of substances associated with fatal and nonfatal overdoses in the state in 2022, according to the Oregon Health Authority. Fentanyl-related overdoses — both fatal and nonfatal — have increased exponentially since 2019.

The substance is up to 100 times more potent than morphine, and just 2 milligrams can cause an overdose, according to CHD’s Fake and Fatal fact sheet. Fentanyl is increasingly being found in recreational drugs, such as marijuana or cocaine, and in pills, such as Oxycontin and Vicodin, and users of illicit drugs may be unaware their drugs are laced with fentanyl.

“The opioid epidemic and overdose crisis impacts every community in Oregon. While overdose events on school property are rare, our school communities should be prepared to respond to an overdose medical emergency,” said Ebony Clarke, OHA’s director of behavioral health.

Naloxone, an opioid overdose reversal medication, can restore a person’s breathing while waiting for emergency medical services to arrive. Access to naloxone is necessary for school staff to respond to an opioid overdose on or near a school campus.

The Oregon Department of Education notified school district leaders about the availability of naloxone for schools. Registration opened Nov. 29 and as of Dec. 5 a total of 505 schools, colleges and universities have requested kits.

The kits are being paid for by up to $693,000 of the state’s opioid settlement funds, which were first distributed in 2022 and total $325 million over 18 years, the Oregon Capital Chronicle reported.

Already on campuses

While the Umatilla School District has not registered for the reversal kits from the health authority, it’s not because they don’t want naloxone on their school campuses.

Heidi Sipe, the district’s superintendent, said they have had opioid emergency kits with naloxone nasal sprays in all their buildings as well as two locations outside, for free community use.

Umatilla schools have worked with Greater Oregon Behavioral Health Inc., which has provided the kits for free and helped to train staff members in administering naloxone. All staff have received training, Sipe said.

Sipe said the partnership was spurred by a situation in which a child — not in Umatilla schools — was exposed to opioids and had a health emergency. It made school district leaders realize the problems were not limited to adults and could affect students.

“The opioid crisis impacts all walks of life in every single community and we had to be certain that we weren’t being naive about that and that we were prepared to help in a crisis,” Sipe said.

Initially, she said, leaders worried about what could happen if the spray was administered on someone who didn’t need it. Once learning it wouldn’t harm people who weren’t overdosing, and could therefore only help, Sipe said they felt much safer having the kits present inside all their buildings.

Naloxone spray also is in the first aid kits the schools bring to sporting events, she said.

Sipe said she considers the kits akin to automated external defibrillators, which are in schools in case of emergency to help during cardiac arrest. It’s part of what should be done to “provide services or support in the community,” Sipe said.

The two outdoor locations with a “nalox box” are near the school district office and maintenance shops, Sipe said. There’s no charge and no cost to the school district because of their partnership with GOBHI.

Because of that partnership, Sipe said she’s not sure what Umatilla School District will do regarding the new state health authority provision of naloxone kits. She said she expects it will depend on what is free and available to the district, though the OHA kits are more limited than what they get through GOBHI. Regardless, the idea of naloxone in schools is nothing new, she said, and it’s important to her and the district to keep that resource available.

Lindsey McDowell, public information and communications coordinator for the Baker School District, said district officials worked with the Baker County Health Department last school year to place at least one naloxone kit in each district school and to train staff on how to use them.

McDowell said district officials will continue to coordinate with the health department about the possibility of adding more kits through the state’s new program.

Grant School District Superintendent Mark Witty said his district also already had opioid kits on hand.

“We do not have firm knowledge of an opioid issue but we want to be prepared,” he said. “Also, we have many events with the community so we are prepared if necessary to utilize the kits with adults.”

Ahead of the curve

For Milton-Freewater Unified School District, it’s been about a year since naloxone arrived, but the district still signed up for kits from OHA.

All seven buildings have the spray, said Amy Muilenburg, assistant superintendent, but the kits from the state will go anywhere the program allows, she said, likely the middle school, high school and the building where their virtual learning academy is.

Around the start of the 2022 school year, she added, there was a community awareness training from Jermaine Galloway, known as Tall Cop, about the accessibility of drugs, and how they can purposely or accidentally be consumed by children. From that training, district leaders knew they needed to do something to be ready, just in case.

Through a GOBHI partnership, key staff members have been trained to identify someone in need of naloxone as well as in administering the opioid reversal spray.

“Hearing the number of issues they’ve been seeing,” Muilenburg said, “we just wanted to be preventative in nature.”

Marie Shimer, director of educational services for Morrow County School District, echoed Muilenburg.

“We have (naloxone) in all our buildings simply because we do have public events in all our buildings,” Shimer said. “This is about the safety of our students, our families.”

Necessary tools and training

The La Grande School District did not apply to the OHA program, but Superintendent George Mendoza said this is because the district already has naloxone available in every classroom and office.

“Our goal is to always be well prepared,” Mendoza said. “I err on the side of prevention, intervention and postvention.”

In partnership with Greater Oregon Behavioral Health, La Grande schools have a supply of naloxone through the end of 2025. Staff also have undergone training on how to use naloxone and recognize signs of opioid overdoses. Fortunately, the La Grande School District has never needed to use naloxone.

Mendoza said he wants the district to have the tools and training in place to save lives in the event of an emergency — whether that be an automated external defibrillator, CPR or naloxone.

Karen Wheeler, Greater Oregon Behavioral Health’s CEO, said she’s glad to hear that OHA is providing naloxone to schools.

GOBHI has worked with 12 counties and two tribes to provide naloxone kits as well as nalox boxes to schools and organizations. Working with schools has consisted of a lot of education about how to use naloxone as well as why its accessibility matters. But now that schools can access kits through the government, Wheeler said GOBHI has decided to stop providing naloxone to schools.

“We’ll focus our efforts of distribution on other entities,” she said. “We’re very limited in our supply right now.”

The school districts of Umatilla, Milton-Freewater, La Grande that partner with GOBHI might not be able to access as many doses in the future as they have previously, since OHA is limiting kits to three per school.

Preventive measure

The majority of schools in Union County requested the opioid overdose reversal kits, including North Powder Charter School, Imbler Charter School, Union School District and Elgin School District.

Union School District Superintendent Carter Wells said the effort was spearheaded by the school’s registered nurse, Deena Reed, who also serves as a nurse for the other three school districts who have applied. Reed said she believes having naloxone available is an important preventive measure.

Reed said naloxone was not easily or readily available for the school districts prior to this program.

“This is the first comprehensive program I’ve seen,” she said.

North Powder School District Superintendent Lance Dixon said his district already keeps naloxone in the schools as a preventive safety measure. Each building has a safety box that includes emergency supplies and tools, such as an automated external defibrillator, epinephrine and naloxone.

The free reversal kits through the state are another way for the school district to have naloxone on hand.

Opioid overdoses have not been an issue in the North Powder schools, Dixon said. However, the administration is always trying to think ahead. He would rather have naloxone on premise and never need it — rather than one day needing it and not having it.

Reed said there has never been the need to use opioid overdose reversal medication at any of the schools she works at. However, she wants to have naloxone available — similar to having epinephrine available in the event of a severe allergic reaction.Mark Mulvihill, superintendent of the InterMountain Education Service District, said having naloxone on hand in schools is a no-brainer.

“Historically, a lot of our focus before was physical safety,” he said. “Now, we’re focusing just as heavily, if not more, on the mental health side.”

And while there have not, to his knowledge, been any cases of opioid overdoses in regional schools, there have been suicides over the years. “Any time we have a teen suicide event,” he said, “it rattles us. This is just one more tool to save a life.”

Mulvihill said he’s not sure whether IMESD will apply for the kits from the state because he’s not sure what its needs are. IMESD has had naloxone available in its schools for a while now, he said, so it might not be necessary to attain additional resources.

“Right now, the feedback from our nurses is we pretty much, for our locations, are set to go right now,” he said. “These are limited resources so I want to make sure that if we have them already, others get an opportunity to receive them, too.”

He said her wants to make sure IMESD only applies for the kits if there is a need for them. It’s also important to Mulvihill to work with schools around the region.

“We try to work on this stuff as much as we can together,” he said, “because we’re all facing the same challenges.”

‘Hope we never have to’

Nixyaawii Community School Principal Ryan Heinrich said naloxone kits are on their campus for several years. Yellowhawk Tribal Health Center next door provided the kits.

Heinrich said Yellowhawk offered the kits and training to the school as part of an opioid prevention program within its behavioral health department. Yellowhawk staff have come annually to check the expiration on the naloxone spray and offer training to staff.

Their kits are in the classrooms, the office, and next to their AED machine, according to Heinrich, which matches the approach at other schools.

“We’re prepared to use it and hope we never have to,” Heinrich said.

He said because they have received kits from Yellowhawk, he doesn’t expect to take many of the kits allocated to the district from OHA.

Training first

Eastern Oregon University has not yet applied for the kits, but intends to do so in the near future.

“EOU’s Campus Safety and Security Department is training its staff on use of the kits and will be applying to the Save Lives Oregon Program for kits to have on campus for emergency use,” said Tim Seydel, vice president for University Advancement.

At Blue Mountain Community College, the decision has yet to be made.

Pat Sisneros, BMCC’s chief operating officer, said he would be meeting Dec. 11 with the vice president of student services and the vice president of human resources.

“We’re going to explore the program,” Sisneros said, “and make a decision after that.”