The Text-A-Tip line is coming to an end and being replaced by an app called P3 that follows the same format. This change comes as an effort to make the report line more accessible for students.

“The concept is that kids are so used to using, and people in general anymore with smartphones, having apps on their phones and just being able to with that one button hit the app and do something,” said Media Coordinator for the North Kansas City School District, Michelle Cronk.

This change is not only modernizing the safety resource, but also saving a little money along the way.

“Every school has to pay for that keyword, like ‘Falcons,’ and the new thing’s all free” School Resource Deputy, Cody Thomas said.

The new platform for Text-A-Tip will take effect on May 23 when the text line is shut down. Not only will the new platform be available as an app for students to have on their phones, but there is also hope to download the application onto the district-issued computers.

“If they can download it on every kid’s laptop in the district, it’ll be there for them,” said Thomas.

Once the application has been downloaded onto a student’s device, they can choose from multiple different categories to report into and follow the fields listed on their device.

“Say someone stole something from you, you can hit theft, then you can type in some info if you want. If you have the name of a suspect, you can type that in,” said Thomas.

While the application comes as a change for students and staff, there are hopes that the app will make the reporting process easier.

“It was hard finding the numbers but once you did it wasn’t really hard, but I think the app will be easier because you just download it real fast,” said sophomore Jacob Dyke.

With all new changes, there was speculation with the introduction of the app, but there are high hopes for the usage of the new tools.

“I do think the functionality is pretty simple, so I don’t think it’s going to be a huge difference and I do hope that we see some increases in usage,” said Cronk.