I'm guessing this merely involved removing the mobile device manager certificate from the iPad through the Settings. Once the certificate is removed, any "lock downs" and settings the school pushed out are removed with it.
I think you might be right. I listened to the NPR piece - there's a part where the interviewer asks a kid to show him the hack. As the kid is doing it he says, "you just go to Settings, then General, then ... oh it looks like someone already did it". In other words the whole "hack" was done just by messing around in Settings.