SALEM — Locking doors. Slamming window blinds. Teachers telling students to be quiet and hide under desks. As Rep. Ricki Ruiz, D-Gresham, put it: “This isn’t a quote from a George Orwell book. This is a reality for many students.”

Oregon lawmakers from both sides of the aisle, and in the House and Senate, are concerned about families getting real-time, accurate information when an emergency takes place in K-12 schools.

Though most districts have some procedure in place, none is currently mandated by the state.

House Bill 3584 would direct schools or school districts to provide electronic communication to parents, guardians and school employees about safety threats. The state House Committee on Education unanimously passed the bill Monday, March 27, on a 6-0 vote, with Democratic Rep. Hoa Nguyen, of Damascus, excused. It needs to be passed by the full House before consideration by the Senate.

“It breaks my heart that we even have to have this conversation,” Ruiz, one of the bill’s four chief sponsors, said when testifying last week to the state House education committee. “Yet, the reality is that we as a state need to do a better job.”

The bill coincides with a rise in school-targeted violence. There were 46 shootings nationwide at K-12 schools in 2022, surpassing the prior year’s record of 42, according to an analysis by The Washington Post. Millions of students across the country experience at least one lockdown a year.

The bill instructs the Oregon Department of Education to develop a process in which schools can electronically notify individuals within 24 hours of an event about ongoing lockdowns, how long it took to resolve the issue and other essential information.

Ruiz doesn’t expect a one-size-fits-all approach, he said, but rather, he would like the state to work with districts to adopt a process that works for each of them.

Rep. Jeff Helfrich, R-Hood River, served as a sergeant with the Portland Police Bureau for 25 years and worked with school resource officers on emergency response. When testifying in favor of the bill, he cautioned lawmakers against using this mandate for all drill information as people could become immune to checking notifications.

Instead, he said to think of it like an AMBER Alert, for which there are set criteria for how and when information goes out.

Ruiz said some districts, such as Beaverton School District, already have adopted communication policies, and states including Louisiana, Washington and Texas have considered or passed similar laws.

But Ruiz doesn’t want to wait for individual districts to catch up.

“I want to be clear this is not against any particular school,” he added. “This is a safety-first policy.”