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Warsaw Community Schools now has a 24-hour hotline for anyone who wants to report a potential danger to students or staff.
Called the Safe Schools Hotline, the number, 371-5024, allows callers to leave an anonymous message about anything they see as a possible threat to school occupants or property.
"For example, if a student overhears a friend talking about calling in a bomb threat, he can call the hotline," said Rande Thorpe, finance manager for WCS.
"It's a mechanism through which anyone can anonymously leave information that could be of interest to the administration."
Thorpe said Wednesday that calls to the hotline are not traced and the hotline does not use caller ID.
The school corporation has been working on the idea of a hotline for about a year, he said, but the phone system had to be upgraded to allow the hotline to work.
Those changes to the system were made during spring break, he said, and then the hotline was finalized.
No one answers calls to the hotline; the caller leaves a message, and school administration personnel know as soon as a call is received. Thorpe said the voice mailbox is checked at least daily and can be checked from a remote location.
Thorpe stressed that calls also can follow conventional paths, and callers may leave their names and talk to actual people if they prefer. The hotline is simply an alternative for people who want to remain anonymous.
"It's similar to Crime Stoppers. The only difference is that we don't have any money to pay people for an arrest," he said.
