Classroom 'surveillance zone'
There are also ethical concerns.
"Kids need to be in schools that treat them like students, instead of suspects," said Johnson Jr.
He, and other experts, worry that surveillance solutions to school violence foster a hostile environment that is not conducive to learning, taking a particular toll on students from Black and other overpoliced communities.
"We should not be turning the classroom into a combat zone or a surveillance zone," said Michael Connor, executive director of Open MIC, a nonprofit that is urging Axon's shareholders to vote to abandon the drone plan in schools and other public places at a shareholder meeting next month.
Axon's board has recommended that shareholders vote against the proposal.
When the company's AI ethics board resigned last year, its members wrote in an open letter that the type of surveillance the drone program would require "will harm communities of color and others who are overpoliced."