ORANGE TOWNSHIP — The Mapleton Board of Education had a first reading for a new policy that would allow the district to obtain and administer overdose reversing drugs at its regular meeting earlier this week.
Policy 6.61 would allow district employees, volunteers, or contractors to use overdose reversing drugs if the drugs were obtained by the board, if the person administering the drug follows the board physician’s guidelines, and if emergency services are contacted “as soon as practicable,” according to the policy.
The district decided to create the policy after consulting with district nurse Tanya Blough, superintendent Scott Smith said.
“It was just to be proactive in case we would ever need it,” he said.
According to data from the Ohio Department of Health, 38 people died from a drug overdose in Ashland County from 2011-2020. Eleven of those deaths occurred in 2020, the last year with published overdose death data.
Ohio has the fourth-highest opioid death rate in the country at 47.2 deaths per 100,000 people. Ohio’s death rate is surpassed only be West Virginia at 81.4 deaths per 100,000, Kentucky at 49.2 deaths per 100,000, and Delaware at 47.3 deaths per 100,000, according to data from the CDC.
The overdose drug policy will receive a second reading at the board’s March meeting and it will likely be adopted right after, Smith said.
In other business, the board hired Hunter Sanders to serve as the 7th and 8th grade track coach, and a handful of tutors who will be paid $20/hour provided by American Rescue Plan Act funds.
