It's a school - write or find a comprehensive set of instructions (for the happy path), give each student a chromebook and a blank USB, and have them do it. You get usable laptops and the students learn an important life skill - not necessarily that they memorise the instructions for next time, but that they learn what's possible.
School Chromebooks are centrally managed via MDM software [1]. Getting students to jailbreak and install Linux is a non-starter. Schools lock these devices down right to the hilt. There’s no way parents would put up with their kids having an unrestricted laptop provided by the school.
I used to manage laptops (both student Chromebooks and teacher Windows laptops) at a school, and I wouldn't even trust the teachers to be able to do this, much less students and parents.
