Patient registration forms can be completed online. You can also contact your child’s school nurse and ask to be provided with a paper copy. Please include all of the necessary information on your child’s form. All three parent/guardian signatures must be included on the form. Please have the form completed by Sept. 30.

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Kearney, Mo., January 10, 2024: Team KSD is alert and ready to respond to signs of human trafficking thanks to their recent professional development.

Kearney School District staff members returned from their winter break and spent several hours learning how to help identify and prevent human trafficking and support victims during an all-district professional development session led by Russ Tuttle on Monday, Jan. 8 at Kearney High School.

Mr. Tuttle is the President and Founder of the Stop Trafficking Project, an organization that uses communication, leadership, team development and compassion to combat domestic minor sex trafficking. He led the roughly 500 KSD employees through training that included the signs that a child is being trafficked, the scope of the problem, how to help protect students and the steps that need to be taken when a victim is identified.

One of the biggest mistakes made by responsible adults is believing that human trafficking can’t happen in their family or community, Tuttle said. In fact, traffickers target vulnerable suburban and rural communities.

Most people have a very narrow view of the problem based on the news and popular media, Tuttle explained. They believe that trafficking is most often committed by strangers in urban environments, which prevents them from seeing the dangers that exist closer to home.

“I want to expand your view of sex trafficking,” Tuttle said. “Sexual exploitation is often committed by family members in communities just like yours. The victims can be straight-A students who play three sports, participate in choir and band and are president of their FFA chapter. It only takes one mistake to make them vulnerable.”

Tuttle’s training centered on the fact that pre-teens and teenagers have immature brains, can often make impetuous decisions and have powerful digital tools that they carry around in the form of cell phones. These factors can combine with toxic long-term consequences for victims who make one bad choice that pulls them into the grasp of traffickers.

Tuttle cited the real-life example of a pre-teen girl who was a standout softball player in her small-town Kansas school. Angry at her mother, she started sharing explicit images of herself online with a stranger. This eventually led to her lifelong struggle to free herself from a series of sex traffickers.

Openness and honesty are very powerful tools that can be used to both help prevent and address human trafficking, according to Tuttle. For a variety of reasons, children can hide behavior – like using social media apps to post explicit imagery – that exposes them to being exploited by traffickers. It’s the role of parents/guardians and other responsible adults to proactively teach children how to use devices safely and what to do when they feel unsafe.

“I’m not angry with kids and I’m not against technology,” Tuttle said. “My mission is to tell kids they don’t need to feel embarrassed, afraid or ashamed to talk to an adult.”

January is National Human Trafficking Prevention Month. KSD Assistant Superintendent for Academic Services Jennifer Kopp invited Tuttle to lead the all-staff professional development because Missouri is a hub of human trafficking and public educators have an opportunity to be part of the solution.

“Several factors make our area a prime location for human trafficking, including our geographic location and interstate system,” Mrs. Kopp said. “As educators, we have direct access to students and can be pivotal in helping to raise awareness with our students and families.”

KSD recently released the Qustodio Parents App and the KSD Online Safety Hub, two valuable tools designed to enhance online safety for students and provide parents/guardians with helpful insights into their children’s digital activities. Qustodio, powered by KSD’s content filter partner Linewize, is a powerful app designed to help parents/guardians monitor and manage their children’s digital activities on school devices. The KSD Online Safety Hub, also powered by Linewize, is a comprehensive resource that contains expert advice authored by leading safety professionals.

If you suspect someone is being forced to engage in any activity from which they can’t leave—whether it is commercial sex, housework, farm work or other activity—call the National Human Trafficking Resource Center hotline at 1-888-373-7888 or text BeFree (233733). Information is available online at humantraffickinghotline.org. If someone is in immediate danger, call 9-1-1.

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Kearney, Mo., May 10, 2022: Kearney School District Nurse Karen Hughes knows that minutes can mean a lifetime when it comes to drug overdoses, which is why she helped lead the effort to ensure that KSD staff were prepared and equipped to respond.

May 10, 2022, is the first-ever National Fentanyl Awareness Day, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency. The goal of this day is to raise public awareness about the growing fentanyl public health crisis and to focus national attention on the issue. The day is being organized by Song for Charlie – a nonprofit dedicated to raising awareness about counterfeit pills – along with dozens of other national and local parent groups, community organizations, and businesses.

Leaders of KSD started responding to the fentanyl crisis in 2019. That’s when Missouri’s Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) alerted local public service agencies and school districts that the powerful opiate was becoming readily available in Clay County. Assistant Superintendent for HR and Student Services Jeff Morrison quickly began collaborating with district nurses to identify steps KSD should take to help mitigate the danger for our students, families and staff.

“When your DHSS identifies your county as a concern, you need to respond to that,” Dr. Morrison said. “So, we started talking about it as a team with our School Resource Officer, school nurses and administrators.”

The KSD responders learned that Narcan nasal spray is the easiest and most effective treatment for fentanyl overdoses. Nurse Hughes took the initiative to find a program that provides the spray free of charge for secondary schools. Narcan was made available at Kearney Middle School, Kearney Junior High School and Kearney High School. In addition, select staff members were trained how and when to use the spray.

“We train our school nurses and other staff members to identify the symptoms of an overdose and respond,” Hughes said. “There’s no harmful side effect of giving Narcan to someone you think is overdosing. Our directive is to go ahead and give it and we will get EMS on the way.”

All that preparation and training paid off earlier this school year when a student started experiencing overdose symptoms after taking illicit fentanyl-laced pills. Staff responded within a couple of minutes and were able to administer two doses of Narcan, which likely saved the student’s life.

That crisis emphasized for Hughes why it’s so important to have anti-overdose medications on-hand in schools and be trained to respond, rather than waiting for emergency medical services to arrive.

“With an overdose, brain damage can start as early as three to five minutes, then death,” Hughes said. “So, having the Narcan available gives us a much better chance of a positive outcome than simply waiting for EMS, even if they can make it to us within 5 minutes.”

KSD’s response to the fentanyl crisis includes collaborating with the Clay County Sheriff’s Office, Kearney Police Department and Clay County Public Health Department to make the entire community aware of the dangers of illegal opiates. The district hosted a public presentation about the crisis by the Sheriff’s Office this spring at Kearney High School. Deputies noted that it was one of the most well-attended presentations they had held thus far.

“This is a great example of what we as public service providers can accomplish when we work together for the benefit of our residents,” Morrison said. “I appreciate the DHSS and our local law enforcement agencies for bringing this to our attention. They’re trying to be proactive and help us deal with all of these types of situations.”

Visit fentanylawarenessday.org to learn more about the fentanyl crisis and how to respond.

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