I found this interesting because there is another alternative to the "hard wired" panic button, see eTrak’s Emergency Response System (ERS) This is in the process of being marketed as a product by Verizon. Certainly there is more flexibility to the system and it can have many more applications beyond the school and classroom. I can see even very young children having one of these for their walk home from school, etc.
You of course need to keep track of the smaller and very mobile eTrack thing-a-ma-bob, but from a cost perspective it could be a real winner. You would need to set it up for who or what agency gets contacted when you do push the "panic button."
