DeKalb County School District is on the hunt for a vendor to build a districtwide system of cameras that catch drivers who illegally blow past stopped school buses, with the program potentially covering more than 1,000 buses across the county. The district is seeking to establish an automated stop-arm camera enforcement program.
As reported by CBS News, DeKalb County Schools is building out its automated camera program to cover the district's massive bus fleet. Documents obtained by highergov.com show the district is seeking qualified vendors to provide a turnkey School Bus Stop-Arm Enforcement Safety Program under RFP 27-806, issued August 13. The proposed system would rely on exterior cameras with multi-angle video capture and license-plate recognition to identify vehicles that pass a stopped bus with its red lights flashing and stop arm extended.
Beyond the cameras themselves, the plan calls for a secure cloud-hosted evidence management system paired with an authorized law-enforcement review portal, according to the same listing. The system is meant to automatically record violations without any driver interaction and maintain at least 95% uptime, per the RFP's requirements. The services would be performed throughout DeKalb County wherever the district operates its bus routes.
Timeline and Contract Details Still in Flux
If a contract is awarded, work is expected to commence in October, with a pilot implementation planned within 60 days of the award and full fleet deployment following in the months after, the listing states. The initial contract term would run one year, with up to four one-year extension options built in, according to the RFP.
Exactly when vendors had to submit proposals is unclear from the available records. The HigherGov listing states the RFP was due September 17, while a separate listing from cleat.ai indicates the submission period closed September 10 at 7:00 p.m. UTC. It is not clear from available records whether DeKalb has awarded the contract or selected a vendor.
A Statewide Push Across Georgia
DeKalb's move comes as districts across Georgia race to deploy similar technology. A one-day statewide study in 2025 found school bus drivers reported 8,868 illegal passings, a figure the Cherokee County School District says translates to an estimated 1.5 million violations over a typical 180-day school year. The problem extends beyond individual Georgia districts.
Cherokee County is already equipping every one of its buses with the cameras, according to the Cherokee County School District. That district's program began with a 30-day warning period starting March 30, and beginning May 4, drivers caught illegally passing a stopped bus there began receiving $1,000 citations by mail after footage is independently reviewed by the district's police department. In the prior school year, a one-day audit found Cherokee County bus drivers reported 262 illegal passings during loading and unloading, per CBS News.
Gwinnett County Public Schools runs a comparable system, with exterior driver-side cameras that capture the date, time and location of each suspected violation, according to the district's own Gwinnett County Public Schools FAQ page, which also states the program costs the district nothing because fines from violations fund it entirely.
Atlanta and Other Districts Moving in Parallel
Atlanta Public Schools has also been moving to place stop-arm cameras on its buses, with the district covering full installation and maintenance costs while the city handles offense review and disputed-citation adjudication, School Bus Fleet reports. That outlet counts at least a dozen other Georgia school districts that have already launched stop-arm camera programs, including City Schools of Decatur's deployment of American Traffic Solutions' CrossingGuard system.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution notes that Gwinnett County, Cobb County, Clayton County, Decatur and Marietta are among the districts already using similar technology. Outside Georgia, Jefferson County Public Schools in Kentucky is partnering with BusPatrol to install automated stop-arm cameras that use artificial intelligence to detect illegal passings, according to WHAS11.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration describes the act of illegally passing a stopped school bus with red lights flashing as a stop-arm violation, a designation used across the industry to define the exact conduct these camera systems are built to catch. As DeKalb moves toward finalizing a vendor, the district joins a fast-growing list of Georgia school systems betting that automated enforcement can curb a problem regulators say has proven stubbornly persistent statewide.
