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I think that's sort of the point of "teaching the children not just how to use their computer but how to take responsibility for keeping it running".

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Show of hands: who here would want to be the admin for a network you know is going to be routinely infected with any number of malware or rootkits.

Networks in school are supposed to facilitate education. The standard approach of making everything impossible to use so that nobody can break anything may work in a corporation, but it does not work for education.

But that is what they do anyway. I learned a lot from using school computers - like how to access VPNs and routing proxies so that I could defeat Bess[1] and access the Sun Java docs to do my AP computer science homework.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Web_SmartFilter_EDU

I would, depending on the implementation. Basically, can I just have a "wipe-and-go" policy? or do I have to manage user-settings/profiles/etc.

Things are much easier if you "embrace" the idea that you'll be infected, and that machines aren't special snowflakes.

Docs in the cloud, combined with "Wipe and go" is our chosen disaster plan. I realize of course this is not perfect. When it breaks down however, I feel there are really good lessons to be learned. Like keep prized docs on that thumb drive like we've been telling the kids.

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