Houston ISD could soon require schools to keep medicine and trained staff on campus to reverse opioid overdoses, amid a recent rise in drug-related youth deaths and hospitalizations in Harris County.

Houston ISD’s state-appointed board is scheduled to vote Thursday on a new policy that requires each of the district’s roughly 270 schools to keep at least two active doses of an “opioid antagonist,” such as Narcan, on campus, with at least one staff member trained to administer it.

The medicine, which is given through a nasal spray or EpiPen-like injection, can quickly help people whose breathing has slowed down or stopped during an overdose. Health professionals say it can be the difference between life and death, giving emergency responders time to transport patients to a hospital.

HISD’s proposed policy comes in response to a 2023 state law that required school districts to have at least one staff member trained to deliver the medicine on any campus serving students in grades six through 12. Each of Houston’s other largest school districts — Cypress-Fairbanks, Katy, Conroe and Fort Bend — have already adopted policies to comply with the law.

HISD’s proposed policy goes beyond the required scope, expanding the rule to all campuses. District administrators did not provide information Wednesday about recent trends in drug-related overdoses on campus in response to questions from the Houston Landing.

The changes follow a local and statewide uptick in overdoses of drugs like fentanyl, a synthetic opioid about 100 times more potent than morphine that has become increasingly common across the U.S.

From 2018 to 2022, Harris County’s substance-involved death rate for people ages 19 and under jumped from 0.5 to 2.2 per 100,000 people, according to data provided by the Harris County Public Health. Emergency room visits related to substances, meanwhile, have more than doubled during that time. The data did not specify how many deaths and hospitalizations were due to opioids.

Across Texas, fentanyl-related deaths among 15- to 24-year-olds spiked from 40 in 2019 to 411 in 2023, according to data from the Texas Department of State Health Services. 

Fentanyl users can easily overdose because of the drug’s potency, including when consuming other drugs that may be laced with the substance, Houston Health Department Staff Analyst Joseph Randle said. He did not have information on how often such incidents take place at Harris County schools.

“The scary part about fentanyl is, if you were to look at a pencil, the pencil tip, that size of fentanyl is a lethal dose,” Randle said. “That’s how much fentanyl can kill you.”

Early data on overdose-related hospitalizations in Houston indicate youth opioid poisonings may have slowed in the last year, as young people’s mental health has started to rebound after the pandemic, Randle said. 

If HISD’s school board passes the policy Thursday, the price of stocking the overdose medicine and training staff will depend on possible donations and partnerships with doctor’s offices, HISD noted in its proposal. Two doses of Narcan can cost roughly $50 over the counter.

Asher Lehrer-Small covers Houston ISD for the Landing. Reach him at asher@houstonlanding.org.

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