Flagler School Board May Approve Stocking Narcan-Like Agents in Schools to Prevent Overdose Deaths

Today, the Flagler County School Board gave its administration the go-ahead to develop protocols in order to do so. The board still has to vote on the proposal at a regular, future meeting.

Crediting Gov. Ron DeSantis for “pushing that out there,” Board member Colleen Conklin said “the intention is to really train the nurses so that it is available on campus. I would hate to think that we would ever even need it. But God forbid if we did. Aside from the SROs,” the school resource officers who carry narcan, “the SRO is on the other side of the building and, just proximity, if we could actually literally save a life I don’t see the downside of it if the nurse is trained and you have it on campus.”

The chances that a school-age child will overdose are minimal, especially on campus, but not zero: according to the latest report by the Medical Examiners Commission, fentanyl was the cause of death for 14 children in 2021, out of 2,920 across the state. No deaths were reported among people younger than 18 in the three-county district that includes Flagler (along with Putnam and St. Johns). Cocaine caused the death of six children across the state, as did methamphetamine, none in Flagler’s district. (See for full report here.)

Naloxone is a medicine that, when absorbed, immediately attaches to opioid receptors in the body and restores normal breathing, reversing the effects of an overdose from drugs like heroin, fentanyl, oxycodone, hydrocodone, codeine, and morphine. It can be given as a nasal spray or injected into muscle or veins.

The school board was following up on a proposal by the Flagler County Drug Court Foundation at a meeting earlier this month to start carrying naloxone.




“The reason I’m involved with that is almost five years ago, my younger daughter died from a drug overdose,” Renée Deangelis told the board last month, referring to her daughter Savannah, who was 23 when she overdosed almost immediately after receiving fentanyl from a dealer. The dealer was indicted for murder and is serving 30 years in prison. “She died in my home. I didn’t have enough information about Narcan at the time. If I would have known more about it and been more educated about it, I would have had it in my home, and she would probably be here today. So the reason I’m here proposing that the school system would have it be more accessible within the nurse’s offices is that parents do not have to go through what we went through.” Deangelis’s husband was in the room as she addressed the board.

“It’s going to happen sooner or later,” Deangelis said. “Instead of waiting for a tragedy and then saying, Oh, we could have done this, let’s be prepared for what is coming because it is everywhere. It is rampant. It is an epidemic.” The foundation, she said, has a federal grant through the Department of Children and Families for free Narcan. “We are able to get as much as we want,” she said. “We could train the entire staff of the Flagler County school system.” She referred to the new law and urged the board to take advantage of it.

The new section of law relevant to schools enables districts to buy naloxone wholesale, maintain it in a secure location on a school campus, and have protocols developed by a local physician defining how the agent may be administered. Neither the physician nor the employees executing the protocols would be liable for “any injury arising from the use of the drug,” if the protocols are followed.




Michael Feldbauer, who heads the Drug Court Foundation, said Narcan will be available for at least the next two years. “It can be two to three minutes’ difference that will make the difference between life and death,” he said.

The public, Board member Jill Woolbright said, is “very much in support of our nurses having Narcan and and honestly, quite frankly, I carry it. It’s free. Anybody is able to have it. And I think just like CPR, it would be good for as many people as possible to be trained on how to administer it.”

Last year, Sheriff Rick Staly reported, sheriff’s deputies and firefighter-paramedics in Flagler County administered 418 narcan doses. In the first six months of 2022, narcan was used 180 times, with 15 overdose deaths. “If it hadn’t been for Narcan, we could have had 200 And that’s not unique to us,” he said at a July press conference.

Board member Cheryl Massaro said there is a misplaced concern that by making naloxone available, it suggests that “it’s ok to use drugs.” She called it “a stupid thought” that’s always been around. Massaro, who has served on youth services and juvenile justice panels for many years, wants to involve the school nurses first to get buy in, “since they’re the ones that are going to be responsible.” Board member Janet McDonald compared the availability to that of defibrillators, and said that just as with defibrillators, more personnel than just school nurses should be trained in the administration of the agent.

Trevor Tucker, the chairman of the board, has no issue with stocking the agent, but is concerned about long-term costs. A grant would underwrite the cost at first. But then what? According to the federal Bureau of Justice Assistance, “the cost of a single naloxone rescue kit ranges from approximately $22-$60 for intranasal kits.”




None of the board members brought up a different issue that is emerging, as more public sector employees are asked to assume such responsibilities: “Labor unions may consider opioid overdose reversal training as a change in work conditions. If trainings are mandatory and do not fall within regular workday hours, overtime coverage may be needed,” a BJA brief states. “There may also be a cost for retaining a medical supervisor/director to authorize naloxone access.

Narcan no longer dominates the market exclusively. The Food and Drig Administration approved Evzio, a naloxone auto-injector “that can be used by family members or caregivers to treat a person known or suspected to have had an opioid overdose,” approved the agent in 2018. “Evzio rapidly delivers a single dose of the drug naloxone via a hand-held auto-injector.” So school districts may have to decide, with their physician of choice, which approach to take.

Flagler County is among the counties with the highest rate of overdoses and deaths, relative to its population. The county is in the midst of a broad revamp of its approach to the opioid crisis thanks largely to a convergence of federal grants and local initiatives involving public and private organizations, placing the crisis nearer the center of the county’s priorities. (See: “Flagler Cares and Paramedics Launch Innovative Overdose Response Force as Part of $1.3 Million Grant,” and “Doctor’s $1 Million-a-Year Endowment, Largest of Its Kind, Launches Flagler Cares Initiatives for Neediest.”)