6 November 27 - December 3, 2025 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | LESSEN PLAN Parkland Families voice concerns over Broward Schools’ armed drone plan. BY ALEX DELUCA O n November 17, the Florida Department of Education announced that three school dis- tricts, including Broward County Public Schools, would join a new statewide initiative aimed at de- terring potential active shooters in K-12 schools. Developed in Texas and known as the Cam- pus Guardian Angel program, the program uses drones armed with less-than-lethal pep- per spray bullets, flash bangs, and sirens to “distract active shooters” during a potential mass shooting. The drones are flown remotely and controlled by a team of “elite human pi- lots” from an operations center in Texas. How it works: the drones would already be onsite in “charging pads” at the schools and deployed in as little as 15 seconds to con- front a potential shooter after a panic button has been activated. The drones use an escala- tion of force process and can ram into a po- tential shooter at up to 60 mph (which CEO Justin Marston said is the equivalent of being hit by a baseball bat). “Ultimately, it’s to save kids’ lives,” Mar- ston said during a demonstration at Florida Atlantic University in June. “Our goal is to re- spond in five seconds, to be on the shooter in 15 seconds, and to degrade or incapacitate in 60 seconds.” But while state officials are touting the program as a “solution,” the plan doesn’t in- spire confidence for everyone — especially some of those most affected by gun violence in Broward schools. Jackie Corin was 17 years old when she survived the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting on Valentine’s Day 2018, in which a gunman killed 17 people — 14 students and three staff members. She later cofounded March for Our Lives, a national organization dedicated to advancing gun safety legislation and advocacy. Corin, who is now 25, feels the Campus Guardian Angel program fails to address the root cause of gun violence. “Every young person deserves to feel safe in their school — not because a drone might swoop in after a shooter opens fire, but because lawmakers chose to prevent that violence in the first place,” Corin tells New Times. “This new drone program may make headlines, but it doesn’t address the root of the crisis our gener- ation has been living with for years.” Corin notes that while the Campus Guard- ian Angel Program is being rolled out, Florida House Republicans are advancing HB 133, which lowers the minimum age to buy rifles from 21 to 18, making it easier for teenagers to buy guns. She also notes that the state re- cently legalized open carry. “If lawmakers were serious about keeping students safe, they’d vote no on HB 133 and focus on preventing gun violence — not pre- paring to manage it with drones,” she says. Those concerns are echoed by Manuel Ol- iver, whose son Joaquin “Guac” Oliver was killed in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting. He tells New Times that he believes the program represents a “failure” of political leadership and our societal priorities. “I think the gun industry found a way to promote solutions that not only normalize the problem, but also create new business op- portunities,” Manuel says. “I’m afraid these are the solutions of a nation that refuses to fix the problem.” After their son was killed, Manuel and his wife, Patricia, founded Change the Ref, a non- profit that empowers future generations and advocates for gun control through creative activism. Manuel says that the Campus Guardian Program represents the “opposite” of the work he and his wife are doing. “What we do requires bravery, requires breaking the norm and going against some- thing that is simply bad for all of us,” Manuel says. “What we do is the opposite of these business ideas.” He points to countries such as Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom as models for effective gun safety. Not only do these countries have lower rates of gun vio- lence, but, as Manuel puts it, “There’s not a business opportunity behind gun violence in any of these places.” “I’m so sorry that we live in a country — in such a great country, with all the resources, with all the opportunities to fix this easy thing to solve without wasting any money -- where we do this instead and lie to the people pretending that we are solving the problem,” he says. “Shame on us.” [email protected] The Campus Guardian Angel program uses drones to potentially incapacitate an active shooter. Photo by Campus Guardian Angel/YouTube | METRO | enrolled last year, that number fell to 3,242 this school year. According to the Associated Press, the enrollment declines in Miami-Dade “erased about $70 million from the district’s annual budget” and left administrators scrambling to cover the shortfall. A spokesperson for Miami-Dade County Public Schools did not respond to New Times’ request for comment. Since Trump won the presidential elec- tion last November, students across the country have been increasingly anxious about his promises of mass deportations. In January, the Trump administration is- sued a directive allowing immigration offi- cials to conduct raids at schools and churches, “sen- sitive” places that were previ- ously off-lim- its. The directive, which was in place since 2011 under the Obama and Biden adminis- trations, prohib- ited ICE agents from making arrests in such places unless “absolutely necessary.” Weeks later, Karla Hernández-Mats, for- mer president of the United Teachers of Dade (UTD) union, told New Times that some Miami-Dade students had stopped showing up to school amid their families’ fears of deportation. Miami-Dade County Public Schools has a sizable immigrant population, with more than 20,000 students from other countries enrolled in the 2023-2024 school year. Most of these students came from Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Haiti via a Biden-era parole program that allowed mi- grants to live and legally work in the U.S. for two years. In August, NBC 6 South Florida reported that the district saw 13,000 fewer students enroll this school year compared to last. In a presentation to reporters that month, su- perintendent Jose Dotres said “the greatest impact of our enrollment issue is not stu- dents leaving us,” but “students that are not coming to us.” He cited a few reasons for the enrollment drop, most notably the decline in immigration to the U.S. Dotres said principals reached out to immigrant parents to gauge whether de- portation fears were affecting attendance, but concluded they were not. The country’s foreign-born population decreased by more than a million people from January to June, marking its first de- cline since the 1960s, according to the Pew Research Center. “We are having less newcomers, they’re not coming into the country, and they’re not coming into our schools,” Dotres said. THE ENROLLMENT DECLINES “ERASED ABOUT $70 MILLION FROM THE DISTRICT’S ANNUAL BUDGET.” Unsolved Mystery from p4
