What Oregon’s panic alarm law asks of a school.

The law is ORS 339.408. It came from HB 3083, which passed the House 50–0 and the Senate 28–0, was signed on May 28, 2025, and took effect on January 1, 2026.^3,4 The decision to install a system stays with each school.

The words in the law.

“When reviewing policies and procedures relating to school building security, the governing body for a school shall consider the installation of a panic alarm system that” meets three parts.¹ A state rule for public schools says nearly the same in its own words.²

In plain terms: it is wireless or wearable, it works with more than one emergency agency at once, and it connects to the local 911 center. The 911 part is the one to ask any vendor about directly. Some systems reach 911 on their own. Others go through a partner service, or call a staff member first, who then connects to 911.

Who it covers.

Every K–12 school in Oregon, public, private and charter, and any educational institution with an average daily attendance of 50 or more students.¹ The duty falls on the school’s governing body: the district board for a district school, the charter school’s own board for a public charter school, and the ESD board for a school an ESD runs.² For a private school, it falls on whoever governs the school.

What “consider” asks for.

The duty arrives with the security review. Whenever the board reviews its building security policies and procedures, a panic alarm system belongs on that review.¹

The statute itself sets no deadline, review schedule, report or penalty. Since May 29, 2026, a state rule sets this for district, charter and ESD boards:²

• Every two yearsReview the school’s safety plan and security policies.
• At that reviewConsider an emergency alert system that meets the rule’s three parts.
• In the minutesRecord that discussion, if the school has no such system.
• ExemptBoards whose schools already have an emergency alert system.

The rule doesn’t reach private schools. For them, the statute alone applies.

Where the money went.

• 2023HB 3101 would have required panic alert devices in schools. The House version put one in every classroom. It died in the budget committee when the session ended.⁶
• 2023–25The education budget set aside $2.5 million, one time, for panic alert grants. ODE ran them as the Wireless Panic Alarm Grant: reimbursements to school districts of up to $2,000 per school building. Up to $350,000 of the total could go to 911 integration.^7,8
• June 30, 2025The last day to finish grant-funded work. Claims were due August 15, 2025.⁸
• 2025–27HB 3083 appropriated nothing.⁵ We found no panic alarm money in any state budget bill from the 2025 or 2026 sessions.

The grant set its own test for eligible systems: wireless activation, the ability to notify police or fire through 911 dispatch, and the ability to set off a school-wide alarm or alert the front office directly.⁸

ODE’s vendor list.

In April 2024, the Oregon Department of Education asked vendors to show how their systems met the grant’s test.⁹ In June 2024 it listed sixteen.¹⁰ ODE called the list a reference, and districts were not required to use a vendor from it.⁸ The list predates ORS 339.408 and says nothing about it.

Alyssa’s Law.

The bill’s chief sponsor, Rep. Emerson Levy, called HB 3083 Alyssa’s Law.^11,12 Other states’ versions differ. Some, including New Jersey, Florida, Texas, Oklahoma and Georgia, require schools to install panic alarms.^13–17 Others, including New York and Tennessee, require school safety teams to consider them, much as Oregon does.^18,19

For the review itself, six school panic button systems are compared here, from each vendor’s own pages, with five questions to ask any of them.