Parents react after three staff members exposed to carfentanil at Monroe Co. school

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) - Parents of students at Sequoyah High School in Monroe Co. are working through many feelings after three staff members were exposed to the deadly synthetic drug carfentanil at school Tuesday.

”Yea I’m pissed off about this,” said Amanda Brown who has two students attending the school. “We send our kids here for an education and they’re not safe, I mean they just aren’t safe.”

Parents were calling on the district to be more transparent with how this will be prevented from happening again.

”Check the cameras, because I know we have cameras in the school and find out where it’s coming from and put a stop to it,” said Susan Sims a substitute teacher and parent.

Many found out about what happened at SHS through Facebook or texts from their children Tuesday, some kids even found out from other students outside of the building.

”I was just in computer class with my friends when ironically my friend texted me saying there was something going on at school and then they said they can leave our class,” said freshman Conor Sims.

Many parents are now worried about sending their kids back to the school without a plan from the district or seeing a concerted effort from the administration to prevent another incident like Tuesdays from happening again.

“Oh yeah. We talked about it, me and my wife have talked about it, we talk to my son about it, we try to get him to maybe make another decision, switch schools, go somewhere else, homeschool, anything. Yeah, so, he’s got a lot of friends here and he enjoys it but we gotta kind of weigh your options on this. This is deadly, I mean any of our kids could’ve been exposed at a deadly rate today,” said Jason Coada.

Students said they waited hours in their classrooms while hazmat crews were ushered into the school to clean up the drug.

”Sitting there worrying, texting my mom, texting everyone else seeing what’s going on making sure everyone is alright, it was scary not going to lie,” said sophomore Steven Roberts.

Classes at Sequoyah High School will not be in session Wednesday and Thursday.

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