Seminole is preparing new drones to keep an eye out for students skipping class.
Photo By: Brea Jones, Photographer

Disclaimer: the following article was written as a part of The Seminole’s 2015 April Fool’s issue. The content included is false, including interviews. Happy April Fool’s Day!

By: Michelle An, Copy Editor

Seminole High School administration has recently announced that, effective the fall semester of 2015, drones will be flying above the school campus in order to discourage students from skipping as well as increase security measure.

According to Dr. Connie Collins, unexcused absences have been steadily increasing for the past 5 years and are expected to continue increasing. This is a major concern as the number of high school graduates in Florida has dropped below 80%. One of the causes of this low graduation rate compared to northern states is the fact that students, despite earning passing grades, are not able to meet minimal attendance days.

Soon-to-be appointed Security Coordinator Mr. Guy Hooves says, “In my opinion, people become too wrapped up in the ethical concerns that come up in using drones and just security cameras in general they fail to realize the massive benefits that can come from their usage.”

While it may seem initially surprising that a public school would be given the legal rights to use drones in monitoring student behavior, the truth is that this idea has been up in the air in several counties for a period of time already. Hooves’ idea for using drones as additive security measure and countermeasures against student ditching has already been explored by the Wake County Public School System.

Senior Ryan Kang counters this reasoning. “I don’t like the idea of having drones. They tell us that drones provide extra security measures that are supposed to make us feel secure, but how is something that is going to be so invasive of our personal rights supposed to make us feel secure? It’s crazy.”

According to the proposal draft, drones would give a better all-encompassing image of the school campus in real time. This provides administration with a better ability to regulate the entire school compared to using normal security cameras, which fail to capture a significant portion of the school grounds. Additionally, drones contain a facial-recognition system that is automatically hooked up to Skyward. This facial-recognition works in a similar manner to Samsung smartphone technology. In this manner, they have memorized the face of every student at Seminole High and can immediately detect when a student is leaving the school unexcused. This is a tremendous improvement on the old system, which has been criticized to be ineffective.

Sophomore Bailey Sky says, “I have to admit, the idea of having drones on campus seemed a little intimidating at first, even though I don’t do anything bad. But the more I think about it, the more it makes sense to include these drones. It’s true that our campus security isn’t the best it could be, and I do think that this could fix the problem.”

Seminole administration has yet to reveal further exact figures as to how many drones are to be added to school campus. However, Dr. Collins has stated that every possible angle of the school will be visible with the vantage point of the drones. These drones will be scheduled to fly from 5 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays.