Kari's Law & Ray Baum's Act: School Phone Compliance Guide

Kari’s Law and Ray Baum’s Act are the two federal rules that set what E911 compliance means for a K-12 school phone system: direct 911 dialing with no prefix, and a notification to on-site staff the moment a 911 call is placed from the building. Most multi-line phone systems installed before 2020 do neither by default, and a school cannot assume compliance without testing per building.

What E911 compliance requires

Two federal rules, both effective February 16, 2020, govern how a multi-line telephone system (MLTS), the category that covers school phone systems, hotel systems, and corporate offices alike, has to handle a 911 call.

Kari’s Law requires that a call to 911 connect directly, with no prefix digit like “9” required first, and that the system notify a designated person, a front office, a security desk, or another on-site staff member, the moment the call is placed. Ray Baum’s Act requires the system to hand dispatchers a usable “dispatchable location”: not just a street address, but the building, floor, and room detail a first responder needs on a campus with more than one building at that address.

Together they cover both halves of an E911 call: getting the call through, and getting the right people to the right door. A school system can meet one requirement and still fail the other. See how a 911 call from a school should tell a dispatcher for what dispatchable location looks like on a real campus, and how to evaluate a K-12 school phone system for the full eight-point check, including a live per-building 911 test.

Kari’s Law

In 2013, Kari Hunt was attacked and killed by her estranged husband in a hotel room in Marshall, Texas. During the attack, Kari’s nine-year-old daughter was with her and tried calling 911 four times from the hotel room phone. None of the calls went through, because the hotel system required dialing “9” for an outside line first, a requirement her daughter did not know and a delay the law now exists to remove.

Kari’s father, Hank Hunt, worked with the FCC and Congress afterward to require that MLTS platforms drop any prefix requirement for 911. That effort became Kari’s Law.

The law requires MLTS platforms, the category that covers hotel phone systems, corporate offices, call centers, and school phone systems, to connect a 911 call using only the digits “911,” with no additional prefix. It also requires the system to notify a designated person on site, a front office, a security office, or another staff member, when a 911 call is placed, so someone at that building knows to meet first responders.

Ray Baum’s Act

Ray Baum’s Act, named for the late Energy and Commerce Committee staff director, passed in 2018 and covers the second half of an E911 call.

Section 506 of the act requires that 911 calls carry a usable “dispatchable location,” not just a street address but the building, floor, suite, or room detail a dispatcher needs to send help to the right door. That requirement applies to both fixed MLTS devices, a phone on a desk, and non-fixed devices that move between locations.

Both Kari’s Law and Ray Baum’s Act took effect February 16, 2020. Systems installed before that date are expected to comply where it is economically feasible, which in practice means most districts are already past the point where “we installed it before the deadline” is a defense.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Kari’s Law, in plain terms?

A federal rule that requires multi-line phone systems to connect a 911 call with no prefix digit required, and to notify a designated person on site the moment the call is placed.

What is Ray Baum’s Act, and how is it different from Kari’s Law?

Ray Baum’s Act requires the system to hand 911 dispatchers a usable location, building, floor, or room, rather than one street address for an entire campus. Kari’s Law gets the call through; Ray Baum’s Act makes sure the location on that call is accurate enough to act on.

Does E911 compliance apply to a hosted VoIP or cloud phone system, not just old on-premise systems?

Yes. The requirement applies to any multi-line telephone system regardless of where it runs, hosted or on-premise. A hosted platform can meet both requirements, but a district still has to configure per-building location and the notification recipients correctly and test them; the platform alone does not guarantee compliance.

What happens if a school’s phone system is not compliant?

There is FCC enforcement exposure, but the more immediate risk is operational: a delayed or misrouted 911 call during an actual emergency. Most districts that test their systems for the first time find at least one building where the registered location or the notification path is wrong.

Does staff need to be notified on every 911 call, or only some?

Every 911 call placed from the system should trigger a notification to the designated on-site person or people, not a subset. The point is that someone at that specific building always knows a call was placed, so they can meet first responders at the door.

Our hosted Unified Communications platform sends real-time notifications to designated staff the moment a 911 call is placed, and supports per-building dispatchable location for multi-building districts. Talk to us about testing your current system’s compliance, building by building.