A suburban School district southwest of Austin shared a video in classrooms showing a student doing 15 minutes of cardiopulmonary resuscitation to his friend after he suffered from suspected fentanyl poisoning.

This is part of an aggressive outreach launched after four Hayes School District students died from fentanyl poisoning or suspected poisoning. Other videos show the parents and friends of the dead students.

The county, with a population of 20,000, including San Marcos, is openly reaching out to members of the community about the deaths and reaching out to families.

“Silence about this would only exacerbate the problem,” said Hays CISD spokesman Tim Savoy. “We decided to address this directly because we were really losing students because of it.”

Across Texas, school leaders are trying to figure out how to deal with the latest wave of the country’s ongoing opioid crisis. According to law enforcement, fentanyl is now the most deadly and available street drug.

A man and woman were charged this week with conspiracy to distribute fentanyl in connection with the death of three ISD Carrollton-Farmers Branch students and the hospitalization of six others.

Connected:Fentanyl from a drug dealer in Carrollton killed three students, the feds said, and six were hospitalized.

The drug is often mixed with counterfeit pills, putting uninformed buyers at risk when looking for Percocet or Xanax, for example. The synthetic opioid is up to 100 times more potent than morphine, and even a small amount, equal to the tip of a sharpened pencil, can be fatal.

Carrollton-Farmers Branch officials said they were teaching students and their families a dangerous drug. Thursday’s regularly scheduled student health advisory committee meeting will now include a discussion of fentanyl.

In the Austin area, Hays officials stepped up efforts because they knew “the fentanyl crisis was knocking on our door,” Savoy said.

One 15-year-old Hays student overdosed after taking fake Percocet laced with fentanyl at the end of last school year.

The school nurse was able to administer a dose of naloxone—a life-saving drug for opioid overdose—but the high school freshman spent about a week in the intensive care unit of a nearby hospital.

Connected:How to use Narcan to reverse an opioid overdose and save a life

Several schools in North Texas, including the Carrollton-Farmers Branch, stock naloxone on campus, widely available as a nasal spray known as Narcan.

Counties are not required to store life-saving drugs that can temporarily eliminate the side effects of an overdose.

School resource personnel have the drug in many cases, as officers often carry it as part of law enforcement/first responder equipment.

Most school nurses and even some counselors and other school staff are trained to recognize signs of overdose or drug use by students. In some counties, especially smaller ones, counselors have access to naloxone and are trained in its use.

In Everman, a district south of Fort Worth with 5,500 students, the superintendent is also trained in administering naloxone.

Students have led efforts to expand access to Narcan in some areas. Last year, the Northwestern School District provided each campus with a life-saving drug after a junior high school student petitioned the school board.

Aubrey Dickinson, a student at Steele Early College, even helped Northwest ISD find a grant through the National Association of School Nurses.

“If someone is unconscious or shows signs of an overdose, they can be given a nasal spray and it will block the nerve receptors that take the drug and stop the overdose,” Dickinson explained at the time. “For this reason, it is called a miracle cure.”

Connected:Understanding the effects of fentanyl, the drug fueling the epidemic in North Texas.

Other counties are expanding drug awareness and prevention programs to specifically include fentanyl.

For example, Grapevine-Colleyville Schools hosted an information evening for parents on Tuesday, which included screening of the documentary The Fentanyl Factor with a panel discussion from local experts.

GCISD spokesperson Nicole Lyons said the district also plans to have school nurses conduct annual training sessions for all campus staff on the use of naloxone.

The Texas Education Agency shares a variety of resources with schools, including lists of health care providers who can give prevention presentations, materials for awareness campaigns, and even places where families can find information about safe drug recovery programs.

Two years ago, counterfeit pills were not yet common in the Dallas-Fort Worth region, said Eduardo A. Chavez, special agent in charge of the Dallas Drug Enforcement Administration.

But now, he says, they are as much in suburban schools as they are on “street corners and in an enclosed public park.”

He added that two pills typically retail for as little as $10 and up to $30, which could be a teenager’s gas money.

Parents may not think that their children can afford pills. However, students have been known to trade items such as sex photos and air capsules for them, he said.

According to him, depending on their sophistication, children either crush and sniff the pills, or drink them down with water.

Chavez said so many school districts are taking “different approaches” to the problem, making it difficult to know if they’re doing enough.

“As a community, I think we could always do more,” he said.

Staff writers Megan Mangrum and Kevin Krause contributed to this report.

The DMN Education Lab deepens coverage and discussion of pressing educational issues critical to the future of North Texas.

The DMN Education Lab is a community-funded journalism initiative supported by Bobby and Lottie Lyle, Texas Community Foundation, Dallas Foundation, Dallas Regional Chamber, Didi Rose, Garrett and Cecilia Boone, Meadows Foundation, Murrell Foundation, Solutions. Journalists’ Network, Southern Methodist University, Sydney Smith Hicks, and the University of Texas at Dallas. The Dallas Morning News retains full editorial control of Education Lab’s journalism.