At least in the schools I did volunteer tech support in the early 00s (in LA, while I was in Middle and High School), the phones in the classrooms were meant to dial into the school’s own switchboard and not to the outside world. Maybe that was possible? My supervising teachers always seemed to walk to the central office to make calls they didn’t want to use their 300 cell phone minutes on (remember that fun?).

The school school had ISDN and then T1 and every computer was networked (even LC IIs) so I don’t think anyone would have bothered trying dialup. In fact, I definitely took advantage of the fast line to download Linux ISOs and other things they were ok with me doing in the off instruction hours.

We even had a small AirPort installation that came care of a donation from Universal Studios or Disney. I had a lot of fun retrofitting an old Rincon 802.11/802.11b card to work with Apple’s Mac OS 8 drivers.

Good memories I am happy to not reproduce given today’s advancements.