Every 911 call on campus, in the hands of the people closest to it.
A school district is dozens of buildings spread across a county. A university is hundreds of them, plus residence halls and game days with more visitors than students. 9Line alerts campus police or the front office when anyone on your grounds dials 911 from a cell phone, the calls your phone system never sees, and makes sure every 911 call from your phone system carries the building, floor and room and reaches your team the moment it is dialed.
“I am very confident when folks make 911 calls now, more than I was with our previous provider.”
Omar Campos-Ertel, Systems Administrator, Whitworth University, a 9Line Dispatch customer on Microsoft Teams and Cisco Unified CM. Read the Whitworth case study
Talk to us about your campus
Tell us about your phone systems, your buildings and grounds, and who should know the moment someone dials 911.
9Line respects your privacy and will not sell or share your information with any other party.
The Challenge
A campus is not one address, and its 911 calls rarely come from one phone.
Most 911 planning assumes an office: a building or two, people who know the address, and calls that come from desk phones. Schools and universities break every one of those assumptions.
The address is a campus
A university can have hundreds of buildings, and a district can have dozens of schools, each with portables, gyms and fields. A district office address does not help a responder looking for a portable classroom behind the gym.
Most callers use their own phones
Students, parents, fans and visitors dial 911 from their cell phones. The wireless carrier sends that caller’s location to the 911 center and nobody else, so campus police and the front office usually hear about it late or not at all. Kari’s Law notifications only cover calls from your phone system.
Nobody opens an app in an emergency
Campus safety apps help when someone remembers them. Under stress, people dial 911 instead, and the visitors on your campus never had the app in the first place.
People, rooms and phone systems keep changing
Students and staff turn over every term, rooms get renumbered, portables move, residence halls add thousands of rooms, and many campuses run older phone systems alongside Teams or Webex while faculty and administrators work from home.
Responders arrive without context
Even when someone is notified, a bare alert says where, not what. A medical emergency in a gym, a fire in a lab and an intruder in a hallway each need a different response before anyone reaches the door.
The Rules
The rules that apply to your phone system.
School and university phone systems, whether Cisco Unified CM, Webex Calling, Microsoft Teams Phone or a hosted platform such as BroadWorks, count as multi-line telephone systems (MLTS) under federal law. Two laws set the requirements.
Kari’s Law
Any MLTS manufactured, imported, sold, leased or installed after February 16, 2020 must let users dial 911 directly, with no prefix, and must notify a central location such as the front office or campus police when 911 is dialed, where technically feasible.
RAY BAUM’S Act
Every 911 call from an MLTS must carry a dispatchable location: the street address plus the details responders need to find the caller, such as building, floor and room. The rules took effect in 2021 and 2022 and cover remote and off-premises users as well as on-site phones.
What is at stake
FCC penalties are $10,000 per violation, plus $500 for each day the violation continues. On a campus the larger cost is time: responders searching the wrong building, or the right one room by room.
What the law does not cover
Neither law reaches personal cell phones. A student or visitor who dials 911 from their own phone on your campus is invisible to your phone system, which is the gap 9Line Pinpoint closes.
Read the plain-English guide to Kari’s Law and RAY BAUM’S Act and what counts as a dispatchable location.
How 9Line Helps
Visibility into every 911 call on your campus, and compliance for your phone system.
9Line Pinpoint: the 911 calls your phone system never sees
Draw geofences around academic buildings, residence halls, stadiums and arenas, parking structures and open grounds. When anyone dials 911 from a cell phone inside one, campus police or security are alerted right away with the caller’s location, including altitude, so responders know which floor to go to. Pinpoint also sends your safety team’s contact information to the 911 center, so the dispatcher can reach the people already on site. There is nothing for students, parents or visitors to install, no registration and no login, and the 911 call itself still goes to the 911 center as it always would. Pinpoint runs independently of your phone system and needs no new hardware.
See how Pinpoint works →9Line Dispatch: every call from your phone system, compliant
Dispatch brings Cisco Unified CM, Cisco Emergency Responder, Cisco BroadWorks and Microsoft Teams into Kari’s Law and RAY BAUM’S Act compliance. It maps each phone and softphone to a building, floor and room, picks up remote faculty and staff locations through Teams’ Location Information Service or Webex HELD, and assigns callback numbers at call time, so you do not need a DID for every classroom phone. The moment 911 is dialed, it alerts the front office or campus police by SMS, email, webhook or desktop notification, with the caller’s location. Because it supports Cisco and Teams together, 911 keeps working through a migration. More than 10,000 organizations rely on 9Line Dispatch today.
Explore 9Line Dispatch →Echo: know what your team is walking into
Echo records every 911 call that runs through 9Line and, while the call is still live, uses keyword matching and AI analysis together to understand what the caller is describing. Your team learns whether it is a medical emergency, a fire or an active threat before they arrive. Each alert carries the call transcript and a link to the recording, so the AI flags the call and your people decide what to do.
Learn about Echo →The 911 call still goes to the 911 center, and dispatch still sends help. 9Line makes sure your own people know too, and know where to go.
Where It Applies
Built for every kind of campus.
K-12 schools and districts
Classroom-level location for every phone, including portables, gyms and fields, with alerts to the front office and district safety so staff can meet responders at the door.
Colleges and universities
Room-level location across lecture halls, labs and libraries, with alerts to campus police, and visibility into 911 calls from students’ and visitors’ cell phones anywhere on the grounds.
Residence halls
Thousands of rooms where a precise location matters most, often at night, and where most calls come from personal phones.
Athletics and events
On game days and at graduation, visitors can outnumber students. Geofences around stadiums, arenas and parking keep campus safety in the loop when a fan dials 911.
Remote faculty and staff
Instructors and administrators working off campus on Teams or Webex carry their current location with every 911 call. Read more →
FAQ
Frequently asked questions.
Do campus police find out when a student calls 911 from a cell phone?
Not by default. The wireless carrier sends the caller’s location to the 911 center only, and Kari’s Law notifications cover calls from your phone system, not personal phones. 9Line Pinpoint closes that gap by alerting your campus safety team when anyone dials 911 from a cell phone inside geofences you draw around your campus.
Do students or visitors need to install an app for Pinpoint to work?
No. Pinpoint works with the phone’s native 911 dialing on Apple and Android. There is no app, registration or login, so it covers parents, fans, contractors and campus visitors as well as students and staff.
How is this different from a campus safety app?
A safety app only helps when someone opens it, and under stress most people dial 911 instead. Visitors never have the app at all. Pinpoint works with the 911 call people already make, and it can run alongside the app you have.
Do Kari’s Law and RAY BAUM’S Act apply to schools and universities?
Yes. Both apply to any multi-line telephone system, including the Cisco Unified CM, Webex Calling, Microsoft Teams Phone and BroadWorks systems schools and universities use. Systems installed after February 16, 2020 must allow direct 911 dialing, notify a central location such as the front office or campus police, and send a dispatchable location with every call.
What counts as a dispatchable location on a campus?
The street address plus the details responders need to find the caller, such as building, floor and classroom or residence hall room. A 911 call from a portable classroom should not reach the 911 center with only the district office address.
Who should receive 911 notifications at a school or university?
Someone who is on duty whenever buildings are occupied, such as the front office during school hours and campus police, security or district safety after hours, with the caller’s location included so they can meet responders and guide them in.
Does 9Line change how the 911 call is handled?
No. The call still goes to the 911 center, which still dispatches help. 9Line alerts your own team and delivers the location with calls from your phone system, so the people already on campus can respond too.
How should a school or university test its 911 setup?
Before each school year, use your provider’s 933 test service, where offered, to check the address and callback number on file, and schedule live test calls with your local 911 center. Update location data before each term and whenever rooms are renumbered or portables move.
Further reading
More on 911 in education.
Get Started
See your campus the way a responder does.
Talk with our team about your phone systems, your buildings and grounds, and who should know the moment someone dials 911.