Kern High School District officials held a meeting Tuesday evening at North High School to address recent fentanyl overdoses on the North High campus, as well as similar problems happening at other Kern County schools.
To our north high school district officials held a meeting tuesday night to address the recent fentanyl overdoses on campus fentanyl is an opioid where a dose smaller than this penny i’m holding can kill you and while this epidemic continues the parents i spoke with say they want more action and transparency from the district meeting at north high tuesday night
As parents voice frustration with the district after multiple overdoses have taken place fact of the matter is that my son was in the middle of a classroom here overdosing and nobody came to his rescue jennifer essex is just one of those parents whose son has been affected by fentanyl and she says the school is not doing enough to save children’s lives my son
Could have lost his life under that desk that is ridiculous and then he sends out a notice three days after my son almost lost his life saying that nothing is going on at this school so that way there were more overdoses after that monday and she is not alone shelly ross also attended the meeting in support of other parents because she knows what it’s like to
Lose a child to this drug my son cameron died of the fentanyl overdose um he had a drug problem he also had it in high school um he died at 22. ross adds it was only two years ago in 2020 when her son died and she says if more isn’t done this could happen to another parent i am a grandmother this isn’t going to go away you know i don’t have a student here at
North high but i want to support these poor parents that are trying to fight it we all need to come together because our children are dying but parents within khsd say they want more communication and transparency from the district so i asked the north high principal how will he address parents concerns you guys send out emails all the time for covid-19 but it
Took a while to send an email about the overdose is there a new plan for that and what’s your response yeah we try to be responsive and we start to hear that there are issues on our campus that arise their parents are concerned about the first time that we became aware of the issues on social media was on thursday and we tried to send a response out on thursday
That addressed those issues i gave the best information that i had at the time on thursday afternoon but when i became aware of new information specific to the use of opioids we released a new statement on friday and scott odlin with khsd says the district is continuing to find new ways to protect students working on what resources we have available and we’re
Always looking to get good suggestions and we have a safety team that meets and we’re always looking to adjust anything we can in terms of student safety on our campuses and resources available to help those with substance abuse but sheree gilmore a parent within the district says this is a real problem and more needs to be done to combat it as north high school
Staff have not administered narcan on campus but only first responders did like fentanyl is real and it’s killing our kids and there’s been over 10 ambulance rides out of this out of this school with ods not one person at this school administered narcan to any of them not one teacher walked any of these kids that were oding up to the office and not one teacher
Followed up with a parent to make sure their child was okay the district says every school is equipped with narcan this life-saving emergency overdose treatment and all you have to do is spray it and it can save a life they’ve also administered narcan five times so far this year throughout the district in oildale brianna willis 23 abc news connecting you foreign
Transcribed from video
Parents: KHSD must do more to protect students from fentanyl By 23 ABC News | KERO