CMSD’s $600k contract with Flock Safety prompts push back from local activists

Our Take

A $600,000 price tag to put Flock Safety's ALPR network around Cleveland school district property is the kind of number that should make any school board pause. As WKYC reports, the group Flock No Cleveland isn't waiting for that pause — they're showing up outside the schools themselves to ask why a cash-strapped district is funneling six figures into a surveillance vendor instead of counselors, repairs, or classroom resources.

Schools are an easy sell for ALPR companies: pitch it as child safety, and few officials want to be the one who says no. But license plate readers don't stop at the school gate. They log the comings and goings of every parent, teacher, bus driver, and neighbor who drives past, building a searchable record of movement that has nothing to do with a kid's safety and everything to do with normalizing constant tracking in communities that never got a real vote on it. That's the pattern we track across the country — district by district, city by city, the same contracts, the same vague justifications, the same lack of public debate before the cameras go up.

Credit to Flock No Cleveland for doing the unglamorous work of showing up on a Sunday to push back in person. If you want to see what's already watching your own neighborhood, check our camera map, and if you'd rather not wait for a watchdog group to organize before your school board votes, our take-action page has the tools to get ahead of it.