Council Bluffs Community School District rolls out anonymous reporting app
The app was announced the same day as a statewide Iowa swatting hoax
The app was announced the same day as a statewide Iowa swatting hoax
The app was announced the same day as a statewide Iowa swatting hoax
A new step in school safety: The state of Iowa rolls out a new app that lets students, teachers and parents make anonymous reports.
It's taking hold in our area. Council Bluffs Community School District is telling parents to download the app.
On Thursday, the district emailed parents, encouraging them and their children to download the app.
"This is just one more tool we have for keeping kids safe," said Tim Hamilton, the chief of students and family services.
Safe and Sound Iowa has both a 24-hour phone line and a message center.
Hamilton says this new program is a step up from what they had in place.
"The difference between the statewide one and the district one is the statewide one is managed 24 hours a day like there's somebody on the other end answering where ours is monitored by staff throughout the day," Hamilton said.
It gives people the ability to anonymously report things like a gun on campus, suicide threat or sexual assault.
"It's meant to be for those things that could be threatening or dangerous to staff and students," he said. "The statewide agency, whoever's behind those phones, works with our schools to really report it directly to our school principals or to myself ... They would call directly to police if the threat was imminent."
Hamilton says if someone wanted to take advantage of the app's anonymity and place a fake threat, the police would find them.
"You have the ability to track most things, just like the swatting calls and those. So this would be the way if somebody made a false report that they would be able to track it through the app," he said.
He says they'll have to see if reports go up because of the app.
"And since it's brand new we really don't know what impact it will have, but it'll be interesting to look at the data a month down the road, two months down the road to see what a difference it is making," he said.
The Safe and Sound Iowa app can be downloaded right now in the app store.
Students will also be able to scan a QR code poster at school in the coming weeks.