ARLINGTON, Va. — An after school class with no kids in sight. Instead, parents filled the Thomas Jefferson Middle School theater in Arlington Monday night to learn from the experts how to protect their kids in an opioid epidemic with deadly fentanyl laced drugs.
"We live in a world that's a lot different than when I went to high school," said parent of a high school sophomore and senior Sharon Gundrum.
"I'm afraid of the of the things that I don't know," she said. "So, I want to find out so that I can be less afraid and maybe I can help somehow."
The Arlington County Council of PTAs organized the event.
"I think the overdose at Wakefield a month ago was a big red flag for a lot of parents in Arlington," said Kate Sinkins who was volunteering to show parents how she's learned to test drugs for fentanyl.
"A lot of times kids take a pill that a friend has given them and the friend has said, 'Oh, this is Adderall. This will help you study for four more hours than you normally can.' And, they have no idea that it's laced with fentanyl," she said.
Some parents say the crisis has reached the point that it's time to allow students to carry the overdose antidote Naloxone in Arlington Public Schools.
APS says because it's a prescription drug that would require a 'change in legislation or FDA policy.'
In the meantime, the lesson here for parents was prevention.
"Educate, educate, educate," said Dr. Darrell Sampson the executive director of student services for Arlington Public Schools.
"Things like trusted adults, things like connections to community, things like seeing purpose in their work and what they're doing...then they tend to be at a lower risk for using things like substances or engaging in riskier behaviors," said Dr. Sampson.
One more thing organizers say parents can do if they want to help - it's budget season.
They want parents to email both the county and school board to insist on more resources for those preventative measures to stop overdoses before they happen.