LOUDOUN COUNTY, Va. — Newly hired Loudoun County Schools Superintendent Dr. Aaron Spence sat down for a one-on-one interview with WUSA9 Tuesday afternoon, just hours before the LCPS Board Meeting. This will be the first meeting since it came to light that 10 LCPS students overdosed on Fentanyl.
"I feel strongly that we did the best job we could given the parameters," said Spence.
His handling of notifying parents, has been sharply criticized by some parents, school board members and even the Governor. According to Gov. Glenn Youngkin, Loudoun County Public Schools waited more than 20 days to notify parents of the overdoses.
In a new executive order, he is directing the Virginia Department of Education to notify all parents of school-related overdoses within 24 hours, work closely with law enforcement, and increase education about the dangers of abusing drugs.
Spence says they're waiting on guidance from the Virginia Department of Education, on how to proceed.
"There's never been a reporting structure in Loudoun County or any division that I'm aware of, around whether or not we tell parents that there was a student overdose," he says.
What has unfolded, has changed his perspective on the level of interest that exists.
"What we're learning now is that people want that so we need to figure out how do we do that, given some of the privacy concerns. If there's a better way, we want to know what that way is," said Spence.
He tells WUSA9 that as a father himself, he's having conversations with his kids about Fentanyl and encourages other parents to do so as well.
"We need to be talking to our children about it, and we need to be making sure that they're safe. We can only do that if we're working together," he said.
WUSA9 asked Spence, who has two children who attend Loudoun County Public Schools, if he would want to be notified if a classmate of one of his children overdosed.
"So specifically, what I would want to know is we have these issues in our schools. I don't need to know as a parent, every time another child has had an overdose, I'm not sure how that helps us. What I think helps us is making sure we're educated as a community to know that these are happening in our schools. That Fentanyl is here, that it's in our communities, and that there are children who are experiencing these trauma, traumatic issues in our schools and in our community," said Spence.
He went on to say, "I think as a parent, if I know that the school division is hosting education sessions to help me understand what that means and what I can do to help my child, and if I know that my schools and my school staff are trained to deal with these issues when they arise, that's going to give me a lot more confidence sending my child to school".
He says they do have staff trained to use Naloxone in each school, but not all staff members are required to be trained.
"We're making it voluntary for those who want to, but we do have requirements for training for staff in every building," said Dr. Spence.
He says there is a disciplinary process for students who are using or are in possession of drugs on school property. However, they also have support services for students combatting an opioid addiction.
"For example, in all of our buildings, we have student assistance specialists. The student assistance specialists have a mental health background, and most of them have a background in substance abuse prevention, and so they're working with those families to provide them with support in the school, but also the resources they need outside of the school," said Spence.
He tells WUSA9 he believes this needs to be more of a community effort, and that there needs to be more outpatient treatment facilities across Northern Virginia that will work with young people. It's something he says he plans to advocate for.
"I've sent a letter to the Governor and I've asked him to issue an executive order asking our health department to work with local health departments and providers to come up with treatment options in all of our communities," said Spence.
During the school board meeting Tuesday evening, teachers raised concerns about creating a more robust system to connect students to intervention programs.
"We must create and fund alternative placement options for students in drug crises where they can receive substance abuse support, academic support and increased supervision that can't be provided in their home-school setting," said LCPS teacher Jessica Kirkland.
Kirkland added during the public comment section that other teachers have raised issues about the growing number of overdoses in classrooms last school year.
LCPS teacher and parent Jennifer Syron said Virginia needs to allow more flexibility in emergency regulations such as consent for substance abuse and mental health treatment and ambulance services to lessen the challenges.
During a work session on Tuesday, the school district also discussed its "Combating Substance Abuse in LCPS" presentation, which includes detailed steps when a student is overdosing. The presentation also lays out the next steps which include ongoing fentanyl awareness events, supplemental fentanyl education lessons in middle schools, review of medication policy, and consider recovery high school and transition centers.
Spence tells WUSA9 he's looking forward to working with the nine brand-new school board members who will take over in January. He admitted they still have a long road ahead of them as they try to restore trust between the community and the school district.
"You know there's kind of a saying, trust takes a long time to build, a very short time to break and then forever to rebuild. And so I think we're just in that process now. And, you know, we are a large school division with a lot of moving parts and a lot of people have different concerns," says Spence.
He says it's going to take some time to build that trust back, but that they're willing to put in the work.
WUSA9 asked him about his reaction and response to the recent calls for his resignation from some parents and a school board member.
"I just think in today's climate, that's really unfortunate, right? I mean, I've been on the job for less than three months and I think we're so fast now to run into our corners and just point fingers at each other and scream across the room instead of trying to get to the middle of the room and have conversations," said Spence. "I think the reason for that is because they're saying, well, you're not being transparent. And again, I understand why people would say, I want to know about what's happening in my child's school school when it comes to student overdoses. And I truly believe we were doing the best jobs given the parameter that we had."
He says they plan to listen and learn.
"We're going to learn from this and we're going to find out what we can do and what we can't do. Calling immediately for somebody's resignation, that just doesn't make sense to me. What makes sense to me is for us to figure out how do we get better and how do we continue to work together to improve in our work and do what's right for kids," he said.