MACON, Ga. — With the growth of technology and recent safety measures for schools, the Bibb County School District officially has a mobile app called Safe4Bibb. It is available for all students and families to submit information and prevent crimes or threats on campus.
The district has partnered with security software Navigate 360 and P3 Intel to provide an anonymous reporting system for students, teachers and community members to use.
Bibb County Safety and Security Manager Matthew Giegler said that the app allows students and community members to report issues that they are seeing.
"Safety of schools is paramount right now," Giegler said. "Within the app itself, there's a laundry list of things they might deal with on a daily basis from bullying, drug use, all the way down to more serious threats against them or the schools, self-harm, suicide. All of those things are reportable in the app in a secure anonymous fashion.”
Many students may feel pressure to keep quiet about violence and other possible crimes. Miller Magnet Middle School Principal Dee Thomas talked about how the app will hopefully build trust between the students and the public.
"They're going through things and we all know that they are faced with a lot these days so them having this platform to be able to voice what they're going through and what they're feeling I think it's going to be very beneficial for them," Thomas said.
But it takes a village to keep the classrooms safe. With technology advancing, the Bibb County School District finds it important to have these safety tools easily accessible to all.
"Something that we deal with daily with the devices in the schools and everything, why not turn them into a tool for us?" Giegler said.
Bibb County Director of Student Support Services Tilnisha Rosser also emphasized the importance of keeping schools safe.
"We need to have safe schools," Rosser said. "Parents depend on us to educate their students but they also depend on the school system to keep their kids safe."
You can download the new free Safe4Bibb mobile app right now on Apple and Android platforms or you can go to p3tips.com to make a report.