I think that they are also greatly overestimating the quality of the IT support that most schools have.
When I was in school, I already knew how to set up PC's and Macs in high school better than they did. I was basically 2nd level tech support for my school library, because I could figure out his tech problems before they bothered to check it.
Even if my iPad hacking attempt failed, I could probably just turn in the broken iPad, give them some lame "I don't know what happened to it!" excuse, and let their IT flunkies re-image it for me. Odds are a senior level IT person who would notice what really happened would ever see it.