alt Hacker NewsI've seen this in a few apps! essentially all you need is an editable text field and some slightly social feature and a handful of kids will collude to use it to circumvent restrictions (of either screen time or school network blocks). Sleep apps, meditation apps, music apps, etc
My kids and their friends certainly spend a lot of time trying to get things to work. My 16 year old found some vpn client he could get running on his school laptop but he can only get past the filters by connecting to a particular gateway outside the United States (i have no idea how he figured out a client that can work nor the IP to connect to). He also showed me how he takes a thermos, puts his phone in it, pads with paper towels and then drops that in his lunch bag. When they go through the metal detectors and bag inspection (yes, includes lunch bags) they shake the thermos, nothing rattles around, and clear him through. Now he has his phone at lunch.
His HS (Townview SEM in Dallas) is ridiculous and run by less than the best to put it mildly so I don't really mind as long as he handles up on grades. heh once i was dropping him off to a line of about 50 kids standing in the rain in maybe 40F weather waiting to go through the metal detector. We went to a coffee shop instead.