Four Duval high schools advance to UNF opioid-awareness challenge

Four Duval County public high schools will send student teams to pitch peer-focused opioid-awareness solutions at a Nov. 12 competition hosted by the University of North Florida, marking the second year of a collaboration that pairs teenagers with university mentors to tackle public-health challenges their generation faces daily.

Mandarin High School, Jean Ribault High School, Stanton College Preparatory School, and Paxon School for Advanced Studies were selected from 45 applications representing eight Duval schools to participate in the 2026 DCPS Innovation Challenge. The event, centered on the theme "Friends First: Early Action for Opioid Awareness," tasks students with designing strategies to promote opioid awareness, spot early warning signs of misuse, and connect young people with support resources.

What's happening

UNF's MedNexus program announced the four finalists Nov. 2, following an application process that drew interest from half a dozen additional Duval high schools. The selected teams are now working with UNF faculty mentors to refine their research, collaboration, problem-solving, and presentation skills ahead of the public pitch competition.

The Nov. 12 showcase will take place at the Florida State College at Jacksonville Deerwood Center, where student teams will present their opioid-awareness interventions to a panel of judges and a public audience. The competition format mirrors real-world innovation challenges in business and healthcare, requiring students to articulate a clear problem, propose a solution, and demonstrate how their approach could be implemented among their peers.

The same event will feature a separate MedNexus Future Healthcare Scholarship Drawing. Five eligible Duval County Public Schools seniors will receive renewable scholarships worth up to $2,500 per year for up to four years—a maximum of $10,000 per recipient. To qualify, students must plan to attend UNF and pursue approved healthcare-connected majors. The scholarships are designed to build a pipeline of local students into healthcare careers in Northeast Florida.

"Opportunities like the UNF MedNexus Innovation Challenge allow our students to take what they are learning and apply it to issues that affect their own generation," said Paula Renfro, DCPS chief academic officer. "Our students bring valuable perspectives and tremendous creativity to the table, and we are excited to see the ideas they develop when given the opportunity, mentorship, and resources to turn those ideas into action. "

Why opioid awareness matters for Jacksonville students

Opioid misuse remains a persistent public-health concern nationwide and in Florida, where fentanyl-related overdoses have risen sharply in recent years. While comprehensive local youth data is not disclosed in the source material, the decision to center the second annual challenge on opioid awareness reflects an emerging recognition that prevention strategies work best when designed by and for the age group most at risk.

Peer-to-peer interventions—programs in which students educate, support, or monitor one another—have become a cornerstone of school-based substance-abuse prevention. The logic is straightforward: teenagers are more likely to notice changes in a friend's behavior than adults are, and they may be the first to know if a classmate is experimenting with pills or struggling with prescription drugs. Training students to recognize warning signs and connect peers to resources can compress the time between the onset of a problem and intervention.

The challenge gives Duval students hands-on experience identifying gaps in existing awareness efforts and proposing solutions tailored to how their generation communicates, consumes information, and seeks help. That localized, youth-driven approach is increasingly valued by public-health agencies and school districts looking to move beyond one-size-fits-all assembly presentations.

What the competition means for student opportunity

For the roughly dozen to several dozen students participating across the four finalist teams, the challenge offers a structured taste of applied learning that extends well beyond the typical classroom. Working alongside UNF faculty mentors, students gain exposure to academic research methods, data analysis, and the iterative process of refining an idea based on feedback—skills that are central to college coursework and professional work in healthcare, public policy, nonprofit management, and business.

The pitch-competition format itself is a form of career preparation. Whether students ultimately pursue healthcare, entrepreneurship, education, or another field, the ability to synthesize research, craft a persuasive narrative, and present confidently to a panel of evaluators is transferable to college admissions interviews, scholarship applications, internship presentations, and job interviews.

The event also puts Duval high-school talent on display in front of a public audience that may include district administrators, university officials, healthcare providers, and community partners. That visibility can open doors: students who perform well in innovation challenges often catch the attention of mentors, scholarship committees, and summer-program recruiters.

Scholarships and the healthcare workforce pipeline

The five renewable scholarships—each worth up to $10,000 over four years—represent a tangible financial incentive for Duval seniors to consider healthcare careers and remain in the region for college. UNF is a significant source of nurses, allied health professionals, and pre-med students for Northeast Florida's hospital systems, clinics, and long-term-care facilities, and MedNexus is explicitly designed to strengthen that local talent pipeline.

Healthcare workforce development is a recurring theme in regional economic-development conversations. Northeast Florida's aging population, the growth of medical campuses such as the Mayo Clinic and Baptist Health, and the broader national shortage of nurses and healthcare workers have made recruitment and retention of local talent a priority for hospitals, the university, and civic organizations.

Scholarships that are both need-sensitive and tied to specific majors help address two bottlenecks at once: the cost barrier that prevents some students from attending college, and the information gap that leaves students unaware of the range of healthcare careers—from physical therapy and public health to health informatics and medical research—that do not require a medical degree. By linking the scholarships to UNF enrollment and approved healthcare majors, MedNexus aims to convert high-school interest into degree completion and, ultimately, local employment.

For the five scholarship winners, the awards could reduce reliance on loans, allow students to focus more on coursework and less on part-time work, and make UNF a more affordable option compared to out-of-state or private universities. Over four years, $10,000 covers a meaningful share of tuition, fees, and textbooks at Florida's public universities, where in-state tuition and fees currently remain below $7,000 per year before housing.

How schools and students participated

Eight Duval high schools submitted a total of 45 applications for the challenge, indicating that interest extended well beyond the four finalists. The source material does not name the four schools that applied but were not selected, nor does it detail the selection criteria MedNexus used to choose the finalists. Typically, innovation-challenge applications are judged on the strength of the proposed idea, the team's ability to articulate the problem, feasibility, and the diversity of perspectives the team brings.

The four schools that advanced represent a cross-section of Duval's public high-school landscape. Mandarin High School, located in the Southside's Mandarin area, is one of the county's larger traditional high schools and draws from neighborhoods that have seen steady residential growth over the past two decades. Jean Ribault High School, on the Northside, serves a historically underserved area where community health and economic challenges are more acute. Stanton College Preparatory School and Paxon School for Advanced Studies are both selective-enrollment magnet schools that draw high-achieving students from across the county and routinely send graduates to competitive universities.

The mix ensures that the solutions pitched on Nov. 12 will reflect a range of school cultures, student demographics, and community contexts—an important factor when designing interventions meant to work across diverse peer groups.

What happens next

The public pitch competition is scheduled for Nov. 12 at the FSCJ Deerwood Center, a venue in the Southside's Deerwood business corridor near the intersection of Southside Boulevard and J. Turner Butler Boulevard. The event will be open to the public, though the source material does not specify start time, ticketing, or registration details. Interested community members, parents, and educators should monitor UNF MedNexus and DCPS communications channels for event logistics.

At the competition, each of the four finalist teams will present their opioid-awareness solution to judges. The source does not describe the judging panel's composition, the criteria for winning, or whether prizes beyond recognition will be awarded to the top team. It also does not specify whether the winning solution will be piloted in Duval schools or adopted by district health and wellness programs, though that is a common outcome of school-based innovation challenges.

The scholarship drawing will take place during the same event. The five seniors selected will be announced publicly, and award details—including the application and eligibility requirements for future years of the renewable scholarship—will likely be shared at that time.

How this fits Northeast Florida's focus on education and workforce

The UNF MedNexus challenge is one of several partnerships linking Duval County Public Schools, the region's higher-education institutions, and workforce-development priorities. As Northeast Florida continues to add jobs in healthcare, logistics, finance, and advanced manufacturing, the pipeline from K-12 through postsecondary training and into the workforce has become a central focus for economic-development agencies, chambers of commerce, and education officials.

Programs that give high-school students early exposure to college faculty, real-world problem-solving, and career pathways help address the dual challenges of college-going rates and workforce alignment. For a district serving more than 125,000 students—one of the largest in the nation—scaling that exposure is a continuous effort, and competitions like the Innovation Challenge offer a high-visibility model that can be replicated across subjects and partner institutions.

The Nov. 12 event will test whether student-designed solutions can contribute meaningfully to opioid awareness and prevention in Duval schools, and whether the scholarship incentive can channel more local talent into healthcare careers that Northeast Florida urgently needs. For the students involved, it is a chance to demonstrate that the next generation of problem-solvers is already at work in Jacksonville classrooms.