Leon County Schools considers using drones for school security, but price tag remains high
On Monday, top Leon County Schools administrators witnessed a demonstration on how drones could be used to distract or even neutralize an active shooter on their campuses.
However, Superintendent Rocky Hanna said the program would cost about $1 million per year - a tall ask when the district is already facing a budget crunch.
“And whether again, we’re doing something locally, internally with our people or we’re contracting it out, I think you will see it in the future drone activity on campuses probably throughout the country,” Hanna said.
Campus Guardian Angel brought three of the world’s top drone pilots to the district’s security office, located off Tharpe Street. The drones are piloted remotely. The company’s CEO, Justin Marston, said they’re loud and undoubtedly distracting.
“Seeing how effective these things are in Ukraine against people with guns and saying, ‘Well hey, if we could turn that into a managed service that’s delivered from a centralized op center similar to the Predator mission in the war on terror, then we could have an expert team centrally and give every SRO in Florida, every SRO in Texas a magic button,’” he said.
Plus, the drones can deploy audio sirens and even shoot pepper balls at would-be school shooters. Hanna said he was impressed by the tech, but he didn’t commit to signing the district up.
“We receive about $3.9 million from the state as a safe school category. We spend north of $6 million a year on our school safety program. So even the money coming from the state now doesn’t cover all of the things that we have in our school safety program. It just doesn’t,” Hanna said.
Instead, the district may try and snag part of half a million dollars appropriated by the legislature for a trial run. That trial run could happen anywhere in the state.
Marston said the drones would cost a few dollars per day per student. Marston said that the drones live on campus, but are under the control of pilots in Austin, TX.
“To have an elite air force that’s standing by to jump in at five seconds notice to try save your kid’s life, I think most citizens, most parents would want that type of capability,” Marston said.
Teams of three pilots rotate shifts, ready to deploy if a school hits a panic button or alerts the company’s central command office, Marston added that the drones are meant to distract, delay and deny a school shooter so that law enforcement can respond.
Hanna said that even if Campus Guardian Angel doesn’t win an LCS contract, the district may try and incorporate drones into its internal systems.
During the demo on Monday, sheriff’s deputies couldn’t land a shot on the drone with a paintball gun, and the drone pilots were able to ram a drone into an MMA dummy, knock it over and get back in the air.
The tech is new, however. The PepperBall gun is physically triggered by a solenoid, and some of the drones were overheating during one of Florida’s hottest days of the year.
Marston said the average school may need anywhere between 45 and 60 drones, so that they can reach all parts of campus and even deploy in waves. With a flight time of 12 to 15 minutes, a pack of six drones costs $15,000.
The CEO added that the company has had greater success signing up private or charter schools, but public schools will also be a focus.
He acknowledged the price tag may mean local school districts need state or federal monies backing them up.
“It’s not just purely the square footage, but our goal is again, to make sure we can get everywhere in 15 seconds so that it really makes it very unattractive for a shooter to come at all,” Marston said. “They’re not going to be famous, they’re not going to kill a lot of people.”