At the Dec. 13 Roaring Fork School District board meeting, Interim Superintendent Dr. Anna Cole said, “We do have an increasing concern regarding the presence, use, abuse and transmission of illegal narcotics, like cocaine, opioids, fentanyl, at our high schools.”
In her superintendent update, she shared what was discussed at a meeting with the District Wellness Committee about three weeks ago.
“The topic of conversation which was prioritized by community members was on substance use. The takeaways from that conversation and what we heard from participants, who reflect the diversity of our community as part of that District Wellness Committee, were that we needed to provide more parent education opportunities and outreach around drug prevention, education and intervention, and also some pushes from partners that we need to use them more in our efforts,” Cole said.
A Dec. 15 press release from district offices stated the district will employ a range of strategies focused on enhancing awareness, delivering education and bolstering intervention and enforcement at the high school level. A key measure to be instituted is increasing access to life-saving resources, such as Narcan/naloxone, to ensure its availability in every high school classroom, the press release stated.
“We are planning to escalate a lot of our strategies around prevention, education and intervention, and considering some additional enforcement strategies to really work toward keeping our schools safe for our students,” Cole continued. “And we really are looking for community support and engagement to talk through what works, what we’re missing and consider adopting new strategies — things like canine units, or drug-sniffing dogs, to identify where narcotics might be in our schools.”
The district has formed an internal task force to expand prevention education for students, parents and staff. Additionally, the district plans community education forums in January to discuss lethal drugs and explore multi-tiered strategies for student safety, including the potential use of drug-sniffing dogs.
“We’ll also have listening sessions at all our high schools for our students, and we really want to hear community concerns, questions and recommendations about our current strategies and some of the ones under consideration,” Cole said.
She emphasized student safety as the top priority and encouraged collaborative conversations with stakeholders during upcoming community sessions scheduled from 6 to 8pm on Jan. 17 at Glenwood Springs High School, Jan. 18 at Basalt High School and Jan. 23 at Roaring Fork High School. Meetings at 6pm will be in Spanish, and 7pm will be in English, with language interpretation provided at each meeting. Reminders for these events will be disseminated through staff and community newsletters.