Colquitt Co. Schools launch anonymous alert app

MOULTRIE, Ga. (WALB) - Colquitt County Schools is changing things up.

The district has officially launched an app for the school community to anonymously send messages.

“The real purpose of this anonymous alert is to protect both the students, faculty, and staff at the school. It’s really not to try and get somebody into trouble per day. It’s really to try and help people,” Ben Wiggins, the school system superintendent, said.

Ben Wiggins is the superintendent of Colquitt County Schools. (WALB)

App users can anonymously message about incidents that may occur outside of school.

“Such as maybe there was a fight on a Sunday afternoon at a park. Someone wants to let the principal know of something like that and give them a heads up. It can be things like bullying. It can be things like suicide or someone may post something on social media about harming themselves,” said, Wiggins.

Anyone can use the app and it’s even available through a web browser.

“Our students who are in elementary ages who may not have access to a cell phone yet or those that are in middle school who don’t have a cell phone yet, it is linked on every school’s website and there is a web browser version of the exact same service and they can use it that way, as well as the mobile app,” Angela Hobby, chief communications officer, said.

Wiggins said they hope they will bridge the communication gap for the school.

“We just want to do everything that we can in our power to give students, parents, community members the opportunity for you to share with us any time they think there is something that needs to be brought to our attention and we would love if everyone felt comfortable enough to come in and sit down face to face and have a conversation but we know that there is situations that sometimes negate that,” Wiggins said.

If you’re from the Colquitt County school district, all you have to do is enter in the code “colquittcs.”

The district was able to attain this app through funding.

“We were provided money through the E-CARES Act to address things like learning loss safety and we certainly think that this falls in line and we submitted it to the state dealt education and they did approve it for a cares act purchase,” said Wiggins.