Forsyth Central picked for drone pilot, district has not committed

Forsyth Central High School in Cumming was selected for Georgia’s new school-drone pilot, but Forsyth County Schools has not committed to taking part, leaving the district in a familiar position: interested in another layer of protection, but not ready to green-light a system that would put remotely flown drones on campus. Michele Dugan said district leaders discussed the idea, yet no final decision has been made.

The pilot would place Forsyth Central among five Georgia high schools chosen by the Georgia Department of Education. The others are Coffee County High School in Douglas, Gainesville High School, River Ridge High School in Woodstock and Statesboro High School. Georgia’s 2026 budget set aside $550,000 for the Campus Guardian Angel program, which would make Georgia the second state to test the system after Florida approved funding in 2025.

Campus Guardian Angel, based in Austin, Texas, says its drones are built to respond in seconds if a school shooting begins. The company says the aircraft are about the size of a 16-inch laptop, stored in charging boxes around campus, and controlled remotely from pilots in Austin. It says the drones can fly 30 to 50 mph indoors and 100 mph outdoors, reach a shooter quickly, and use sirens, strobe lights, pepper spray and other non-lethal measures to slow or confuse an attacker while law enforcement closes in.

The pitch is straightforward: narrow the deadly gap between the first shot and the arrival of officers. The company says that gap can stretch from five to eight minutes, and it aims to cut it to about 15 seconds. FOX 5 Atlanta reported the system is designed to reach a shooter in about 15 seconds and degrade the threat within 60 seconds, while also giving officers live video and a speakerphone link to the scene.

That promise is also why the concept is drawing scrutiny. Advocates for gun safety have called the approach untested and argued that schools and lawmakers should focus more on prevention, including safer-storage laws, background checks and other measures that aim to stop violence before a crisis starts. Others say the state is searching for any tool that might help in the first moments of an attack, when seconds matter most.

Georgia already requires public school safety plans to cover violence prevention, threat assessment and mental health awareness under House Bill 147, the Safe Schools Act, which passed in April 2023. The Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency says those plans must include multidisciplinary input, annual intruder-alert drills, and reporting. For Forsyth County parents, that means the drone proposal would not replace the district’s current safety framework, but sit on top of it if the system ever gets adopted. For now, Forsyth Central remains named, but not committed.