Hi gboucher,
Welcome here, and thanks for this massive installation. Makes us all very proud to be used in an entire school network.
However, I recommend a shared setup.
Our IT guy just did a similar deployment script, but we opted to use a centralized database so it can be managed by the lighting TD for everybody.
- mount the shared network folder as L: drive (which is our asset library)
- modify the sIBL shortcut link on each installation's desktop by adding
-d L:\SmartIBL\database -r
- save all the default sIBL sets on the same server (but a different subdirectory than the actual database file, for example L:\SmartIBL\default_collection).
My machine does not have the -r in the shortcut, which means the database is not write protected for me and I have the glorious task of housekeeping it for everybody.

PS: The administrator login trouble was also biting us, but in the 3dMAX script that launches the OLE server for the first time. Would be awesome to see a solution for that.