Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin issued an executive order Wednesday mandating that school districts tell parents about any overdoses involving their schools within 24 hours after news that numerous Loudoun County Public Schools students have overdosed over the past few weeks.
At least nine students at Park View High School in Sterling overdosed on pills suspected of containing fentanyl, the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office said. LCPS said Wednesday night that a total of 10 students at six different schools have suffered suspected overdoses on their respective campuses so far this school year.
Youngkin said Loudoun County Public Schools reportedly waited more than 20 days to tell parents about the overdoses. The Loudoun County Sheriff's Office released information to the public about the overdoses at Park View on Tuesday.
The governor's order directs the Virginia's superintendent of public instruction and the Department of Education to issue guidance for school systems to notify all parents within 24 hours of a student overdose, work with police to prevent overdoses and strengthen student education about the dangers of drug abuse.
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"Parents have a right to know what’s going on in their child's lives, especially in schools. Overdoses that occur on school grounds or are connected to the school must lead to an immediate parental notification," Gov. Youngkin said. "School administrators’ first instinct when there is a problem cannot be to delay relevant information on critical children's health and safety matters - it must be passed on to parents immediately."
Four of the overdoses involving Park View students happened at the school, while the rest happened off campus. Three of the students who overdosed on campus were given the anti-overdose drug Naloxone, and school staff also did CPR on two of those students, the sheriff's office previously said.
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Six more students at other schools in the county suffered suspected overdoses this school year on their respective schools' campuses, LCPS said. Those high schools include Broad Run, Briar Woods, Dominion, Loudoun County and Tuscarora. Among those students, a Dominion High School student received Naloxone, LCPS said.
"For comparison’s sake, four incidents required naloxone administration to students during the entire 22/23 school year. This number is concerning and distressing, and we will do everything in our power to ensure this does not continue," Loudoun County Superintendent Aaron Spence said in a letter to parents Wednesday night.
All 10 students who had suspected overdoses on school grounds survived, a spokesperson for LCPS said.
In a search warrant affidavit filed on Oct. 24, a detective said a recent overdose victim "met [with another student] in the school bathroom to purchase the pills, the day before he overdosed" on Oct. 17.
Miyares said the governor’s executive order also requires schools to notify the community in those situations when an overdose happens after a student gets drugs at school.
"It's 'school connected' in the sense that it was acquired on school property, that's the school connection, and, unfortunately, it is ubiquitous and in so many different school districts right now that we're seeing this," Miyares said.
While it's unclear if the student mentioned in the affidavit was the first Park View victim, at least two weeks passed before the school system notified parents, and by then, more students had overdosed.
"Why was there a delay until Oct. 31 in letting the community know?" Loudoun County School Board member Tiffany Polifko said.
"We cannot regain trust that's been lost in this school system over the last several years and improve transparency if we don't tell parents what's going on," Polifko said.
Loudoun County Public Schools did not respond to News4's request on Thursday for an interview with Spence, nor did the school system give a response to the governor's order.
"Any private information that might identify a student would not be released by the school system, however, if a situation may require law enforcement investigation, the lead investigating agency may be able to provide more specific information about a particular incident," a spokesperson for LCPS said in a statement to members of the media on Wednesday.
“They don’t have to give and disclose the information about the specific name of the student, the grade or any identifying information. But parents need to know that there is a fentanyl problem here at Park View,” school board candidate Amy Riccardi said Tuesday night.
Riccardi, who is running for the Sterling district seat on the Loudoun County School Board said she was at Park View High School for one of the superintendent’s listening sessions on Oct. 12, the day one of the overdoses took place.
“A student had to have Narcan and an AED used to revive them. That happened during the day. And that night, [the superintendent] was here for a listening session and said nothing about it,” Riccardi said.
"When Dr. Spence was made aware that this was a more persistent issue at Parkview, he asked for our Safety and Security team to go to the school and conduct a safety assessment to ensure we were doing all we can to prevent students from accessing/using fentanyl in school. He asked for a comprehensive communication plan to be established to include outreach to the Park View community first to be followed by broader outreach to the community second, and he asked for an education plan to be developed built on what has been done previously with an emphasis on continuing education for students, staff and families," the spokesperson for LCPS said.
The small, blue pills the students took look just like Percocet pills, the sheriff said.
"They look like pharmaceutical-grade pills and they're not," Loudoun County Sheriff Mike Chapman said.
Chapman said there have been 19 juvenile overdoses related to fentanyl in the county so far this year, which matches the same number for all of last year.
Stay with News4 for updates to this story.
