Two counties in North Carolina have been selected to pilot an Artificial Intelligence (AI) School Safety Program that could soon be installed in all public schools across the state to enhance security measures for student safety.
The General Assembly has allocated $3.2 million to New Hanover County and $2 million to Davidson County for the initial pilot program. The grant was outlined in the third disaster relief bill passed by the General Assembly at the end of 2024.
“Funds allocated for the Pilot Program shall be used for the implementation of a school safety system that integrates AI technology into existing cameras, video management systems, and alerting protocols,” the legislation states.
The school districts will use the funds to integrate advanced AI technology into school safety systems capable of detecting a range of security threats, including threatening objects, intruders, open doors, and instances where individuals may be injured. If the AI security system detects a threat through the school’s existing camera system, the technology can then “tag and track” the person or threat as it moves while also alerting appropriate parties like law enforcement and school leaders.
In an interview with the Carolina Journal, Sen. Steve Jarvis, R-Davidson, who has been involved in driving the effort forward, pointed to recent school shootings that worry many parents as a reason to heighten security. He explained that the system can detect objects like a firearm, as well as smoke from a fire or vaping, or a fight with a large crowd gathering.
“It is a very robust system,” Jarvis told the Carolina Journal. “It’s been used in the World Games. Of course they use it in airports. They use it in many other areas of government. And I just think it’s time that we put our kids at the forefront, and school safety is paramount… If you think about it, from a security system, you have cameras, say, you have 50 or 100 cameras on the school campus, even if you have a person monitoring those cameras, they can’t take a break. They can’t physically monitor all the cameras at all times. This system will monitor 24/7.”
The program’s progress and outcomes will be reported to the Joint Legislative Education Oversight Committee by January 2026, with details on participating schools, expenditure of funds, and the impact on school safety. Jarvis expects a statewide rollout of the system to come following the program’s completion.
“We would like to see the pilot move forward and be able to be implemented statewide if the reports come back like we think they will,” he said.
New Hanover and Davidson Counties are expected to begin implementing an identical system in the coming months, but first, each school board must finalize implementation plans. The New Hanover School Board will meet on Tuesday to discuss the program, and the Davidson County Board is expected to have a meeting to vote on the plan on February 3.
Privacy concerns raised
The grant requires the districts to contract with a software vendor that offers performance capabilities including threatening object detection, intruder detection, person down detection, door open detection, tag and track, facial recognition, forensic face search, and a license plate reader.
Some people have raised privacy issues about an artificial intelligence system constantly monitoring students, particularly the use of facial recognition technology in schools. Polly Leonard, a concerned citizen whose kids attended Davidson County schools, expressed hesitancy about the technology while condemning what she’s heard as an “all-hands-on-deck money grab” within the disaster relief bill.
“It concerns me with the level of AI that they’re wanting to implement, that we’re living in a police state within the school system,” said Leonard. “We have over 900 cameras in Davidson County Schools, but nobody mans the camera system. Nobody watches what is actually going on with the cameras. Why are we spending money when we already have cameras, you just need to put people in front of them?”
Though the legislation states that the chosen system must offer all of the capabilities, it does not mean that the school districts must use all capabilities. Sen. Jarvis noted that Davidson County has chosen to forgo using facial recognition and license plate reader technology, but the system will still have the capability to be utilized.
“Facial recognition is not being used,” he said. “It could be used according to the Parents Bill of Rights – there is an exception for safety, but Davidson County has chosen not to use the facial recognition. Even if you did use it all, all of the data is being housed on the server in the school. No data is going outside of the school, and after so many hours, just like the video feed currently is, it would automatically override.”
The system searches the database according to specific instructions, such as identifying sexual predators, and will only detect what it is directed to search for.
AI misses the mark in Nashville shooting
Leonard also raised concerns about the effectiveness of the systems, explaining that it only works if a weapon is openly brandished.
“A lot of us parents were going to do a little bit of digging to see how many school shootings actually occur where they come in brandishing weapons, or is it a more often than not situation where they’re hiding the weapons when they come in?” she said. “And so if that’s the case, why would a metal detector not be your first line of defense so the weapon isn’t breaching into the property first?”
She pointed to the school shooting that occurred last week at a high school in Nashville, Tennessee, where one student was killed and another was injured. The public school had an artificial intelligence security system installed called Omnilert, but it did not detect a gun inside the school.
While it did not detect the shooter’s gun due to security camera placement, it did activate when police entered the building with weapons drawn, according to reports.
“We can confirm that the Omnilert Gun Detect system is deployed at Metro Nashville schools but in this case the location of the shooter and the firearm meant that the weapon was not visible,” Omnilert CEO Dave Fraser said. “This is not a case of the firearm not being recognized by the system.”
Both North Carolina counties are expected to use the vendor Eviden, whose executives have pitched the system to board members and will face key questions in the coming weeks as the districts work to incorporate the technology into their school safety efforts.