I think their are many great options. But I do think a few shut be excluded at least in the beginning. Anything arch based I would not recommend you start on, Yes that includes CachyOS. They are great distros dont get me wrong. Also their is NixOS. And again a amazing distro but not something too start on. It is fundamentally so different then other distros it can be harder to fix issues if you are new.

Instead of giving you a “pick this” distro I will recommend you some flavors 😋. Most Ubuntu based distros are a good start as well as Fedora. Loads and loads of info online.

Maybe a odd choice but if I hat to recommend 1 distro. It is Opensuse Tumbleweed. She isn’t the faster but she is a solid rolling release (so very updated) Distribution.

It would be beter to educate then ban outright IMO. If you ban the device outright kids will be sneaky about it. When I was still in school we hat smartphones and used it from time to time. Great tool for meeting with friends from other classes. Sending a message to your parents you can leave early or something. Outright banning phones is IMO stupid and only makes the problem worse. We should teach kids to be responsible instead.