The system, a different one than what Uvalde relied on, allows staff to trigger a lockdown announced with flashing strobe lights, a takeover of staff computers and a prerecorded intercom announcement. The Olathe district considered whether panic buttons would have made a difference that day. He said he had been eying the system even before gunfire erupted in an Olathe high school in March as staff confronted an 18-year-old over rumors that he had a gun in his backpack.

In suburban Kansas City, the decision to spend $2.1 million over five years for a system called CrisisAlert “isn’t a knee-jerk reaction,” said Brent Kiger, Olathe Public Schools’ director of safety services. “It’s a lot harder to point to the value of training your staff. “People want visible, tangible things,” Trump said. And those who did may not have taken it seriously, the Legislature’s report said: The school sent out frequent alerts related to nearby Border Patrol car chases. But not all teachers received it because of poor Wi-Fi or phones that were turned off or in a drawer, according to an investigation by the Texas Legislature.

Robb Elementary School had implemented an alert app, and when an attacker approached the school, a school employee sent a lockdown alert. The attack in Uvalde illustrated the shortcomings of panic-alert systems.

No panic button forged in fire