@ayrkain
If a kid sitting in class with a Flipper can repeatedly deauth clients in his classroom (the article doesn't state this but I assume he was doing that, at minimum) then they need to take a hard look at their infrastructure.

You're correct that someone with serious hardware and knowledge could do more. While this kid was certainly in the wrong, you could say he did the school district a favor in a way by showing they are potentially vulnerable to low-skill attacks.