A false alarm at a Hayden school Friday morning sent police and staff scrambling, but the inadvertent lockdown was a result of human error, not ill intent.

“There was no threat,” Coeur d’Alene School District spokesman Scott Maben said. “There was no emergency.”

The district installed a new lockdown safety system this year, which can be activated a number of ways, by a host of staff members.

Someone at Hayden Meadows Elementary likely activated the system inadvertently — and unknowingly — with a key fob.

Lt. Ryan Higgins of the sheriff’s office said the call came about 11 a.m. from another deputy who works as a school resource office but who was in Spokane on a training assignment.

The deputy received the lockdown notice and immediately contacted the sheriff’s office, Coeur d’Alene Police and Idaho State Police.

Officers sped toward the scene while Coeur d’Alene police officers, through an automated system, accessed the school’s surveillance cameras and scanned the hallways and classrooms for threatening behavior that activated the lockdown, but saw none.

When patrol officers arrived they met with school officials and were told of the error.

That didn’t stop police from following protocol.

“We enter the school and go room to room.” Higgins said.

Despite learning of the mishap, officers checked every room for a threat before clearing the area.

It wasn’t the first inadvertent lockdown this year. A month ago an accidental lockdown occurred at Atlas Elementary.

“Staff has a couple of ways to activate a lockdown and because some of this is still new, we have employees unaccustomed to the procedures,” Maben said. “This was human error.”

Once a lockdown is activated, Maben said, an alarm goes off in the school and every student and staff member follows a set of procedures that includes locking doors and staying in classrooms until they hear an all clear.

In this case, Higgins said, his officers were met with happy school children who were excited to see uniformed officers.

“They asked if we wanted to have lunch with them,” he said.

Maben said the district contacted parents and guardians in the morning to apprise them of the glitch, and followed up with another notice in the afternoon.