PEORIA, Ill. – Peoria Public Schools safety officers are getting more tips since they switched to an anonymous phone app, tip411.
The app can be used to report bullying, potential fights, incidents outside school, parents’ concerns, and complaints.
PPS implemented tip411 in 2022, and has since received over 150 tips to date.
School Safety Director Demario Boone told 25 News, with the app, his staff can get reports and respond to anonymous texts to get more information, something they couldn’t do before.
At Monday night’s school board meeting, Boone said in the last month, PPS school safety officers received 24 tips through tip411, with a tip on Sunday being the most recent.
Boone said through tip411, his officers have received tips about a teacher, and concerns over a firearm posted on social media.
“I was out on a Saturday with my kids, got a tip, sent it to Peoria Police, and we were able to get in the house, search the house, get the BB gun out of the house because it wasn’t a real one. Within 20 minutes we were able to solve all of that thanks to tip411,” Boone said.
In addition to tip411, Peoria Police Chief Eric Echevarria said having school resource officers at each building has also helped.
Echevarria said PPD has seen a 41% reduction over the year in all incident reports from the schools.
“Most of disorderly conducts also include these threats that we’re seeing nationally and locally; we’re still down 3% compared to last year,” Echevarria said.
Anyone can download tip411 to send tips to the PPS security department. They can also submit tips by texting “PSD150TIP” to 847411.
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