Clark County School District Police will not pursue a new agreement to access Flock Safety's license plate-reader system, Chief Jeff Clark announced in a statement Monday. The decision follows a pause the department put on Flock access back in August while Clark reviewed departmental policies and procedures, and it closes out months of scrutiny over how school police were using the surveillance network.
According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the district said school police will not pursue a new Memorandum of Understanding to access the Flock camera system. Clark told FOX5 Las Vegas that the pause came as he took a fresh look at the department he now leads: “As I reviewed all of our policies, I chose to put Flock on hold.”
CCSD Police never owned or operated any Flock hardware. Instead, the department previously accessed footage through partner law enforcement agencies, a detail confirmed by The Nevada Independent. The cameras themselves were owned, maintained and funded by local agencies and businesses, and CCSD was given only share-only access to whatever cameras were made available, as KTNV reported. No Flock cameras were ever installed on district properties, and CCSD and its police department did not own, lease or otherwise maintain any Flock equipment within their own jurisdiction, per the same report.
How the Arrangement Worked Before the Pause
CCSD Police had been using Flock cameras since August 2024 to help investigate serious criminal events, the station's report notes. A prior department memo restricted that access strictly to felony, firearms, narcotics and child endangerment investigations, according to the Fox5 report, and limited who could even run a search. Public data cited by Coyote Country LV showed CCSD conducted roughly 70 Flock-related searches in 2025, each tied to an active investigation or case number.
Clark said the department's posture toward surveillance tools will not change when lives are on the line. “In any emergency involving imminent danger to our students, staff, or community, we will collaborate with our law enforcement partners and use all available tools to ensure their safety,” he said, per the Review-Journal. He also said any future developments involving the technology will go before the public rather than stay internal, noting that updates will be shared with the Board of School Trustees and the public.
A Much Larger Network Across the Valley
CCSD's limited, share-only access was always a small slice of a much bigger surveillance footprint in the Las Vegas Valley. The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department operates approximately 200 Flock license plate reader cameras on city or county infrastructure, according to The Nevada Independent, though Clark County Sheriff Kevin McMahill has given a different figure, telling the Review-Journal that LVMPD has about 180 Flock Safety cameras and 130 Motorola cameras, plus access to more than 300 privately owned cameras throughout the valley. LVMPD also shares its Flock data with hundreds of state and local law enforcement agencies across the country, The Nevada Independent reported, and the city of Las Vegas's own public policy dashboard recently showed about 185,000 plates collected in a single month from 22 active cameras, with five searches logged in the prior 30 days.
Lawmakers and Districts Elsewhere Are Watching Too
CCSD's retreat from Flock access lands as Nevada lawmakers weigh new limits on the technology statewide. Fox5 reported that lawmakers from both parties are looking at “guardrails” for Flock cameras, and the Joint Interim Standing Committee on the Judiciary has already discussed a forthcoming Bill Draft Request addressing government standards for automated license plate readers.
Similar fights have played out in school systems elsewhere. In Colorado, Aurora police shut off 12 Flock cameras installed at high schools after city council members pushed back, Colorado Politics reported, while the Denver Post reported that Cherry Creek Schools pulled Flock cameras from four campuses — Overland, Grandview, Cherokee Trail and Smoky Hill — after determining there was no official agreement in place with police. Denver itself ended its citywide Flock contract this year following months of public criticism, with other Colorado municipalities canceling or declining to renew similar deals, according to the same Denver Post report.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada had called on school trustees to take action after CCSD first announced its pause, arguing that letting school police decide on their own whether to adopt the technology without board oversight would be reckless. KTNV's earlier reporting noted that Flock cameras have become part of a broader national debate, as Americans push back on how their movements are being tracked across their own communities.
