Henrico school nurses now authorized to administer naloxone

The Henrico County School Board voted Dec. 8 to approve a revision to its Health Services policy that will allow school nurses to carry and administer naloxone to students or staff members.

Naloxone – also known by the brand name Narcan– is a medication that can reverse an opioid overdose, such as those from heroin, fentanyl, or prescribed opioid medications. The policy would allow nurses to administer the drug to students or staff who are experiencing a life-threatening overdose.

Naloxone can be given intravenously, injected, or sprayed into a person’s nostrils. Previously, only school resource officers carried naloxone, but under the new policy school nurses and school board employees will be allowed to carry and administer it.

The school district’s supply of naloxone comes from a partnership with the Virginia Department of Health, which also provides the drug to businesses and nonprofits to help reduce opioid overdose deaths in the state.

In Virginia in 2020, about four people died from opioid overdoses each day, according to data from the VDH.

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Also at its meeting, the school board heard about changes to the online HCPS Planning Guide, which is a feature that students, parents, and counselors can use to track a student’s progress toward graduation and career goals.

The planning guide is now able to be translated into 104 languages to make it accessible to more families, Director of School Counseling Liz Parker said. It also has been integrated with Major Clarity, an academic planning platform used by HCPS.

More site updates are still to come. The PowerSchool Graduation Plan Progress feature, which shows students what they have to do to earn a standard, advanced, or applied studies diploma, will be available to students in early 2023. The online feature will show which courses a student should plan on taking in order to fulfill graduation requirements. According to Parker, it should be available to school counselors in January.

This year marks the third year of updates to the platform since it went fully online. One of the goals of updates to the platform is to start a dialogue between parents, students, and counselors, Parker said – especially by involving more parents.

Parker also shared data from the platform, which showed the top five careers that students are interested in “test-driving.” In Henrico, those are performing arts, graphic design, psychology, journalism, and veterinary sciences.

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Anya Sczerzenie is the Henrico Citizen’s education reporter and a Report for America corps member. Make a tax-deductible donation to support her work, and RFA will match it dollar for dollar. Sign up here for her free weekly education newsletter.