Loading reply snippet...Its just a job, feels a little silly to me to call it special. IMO anyone who sees IT work as a position of power rather than of responsibility isn't going to make good planning decisions anyway.

You are right that a lot of IT folks were also curious students peeking behind the curtain. The hacker mindset tends to make people good at troubleshooting issues in complex systems.

The point I meant is that any school IT will mostly care about stuff that leaves them with liability or makes more work. I can't speak for every school but usually that means coloring outside the lines is ok as long as you don't cause a hassle on purpose. The students that see trouble are the ones that make themselves a regular pain or cause liability issues that surface to admin staff.
With Chromebooks, any IT department issuing them to children has to expect some amount of attrition, so anyone who brings one in a ready-to-recover state and isn't doing it on purpose shouldn't be seen as a problem.