While it didn't happen at a school, I was witness a few months ago to the mother of all mailing list wtfs.
A good friend of mine was working for "Da Man" and asked me to set up a private list for his working group, mistake 1. I was even a nice guy and wrote out step by step instructions, mistake 2. Since this group consisted of people from all over the world, he natually thought of it as a Global group to which I replied "Kinda, but not really," mistake 3.
So I get the list set up, clear it with IT so they can do the magic finger waving and whatever sacrificial offerings need done and call it a day, mistake 4.
The next morning my phone rings, bad feeling, caller ID, REALLY bad feeling, I answer, mistake 5.
The Director of IT for a TLA proceeds to tell me that he isn't really interested in my friends meeting, and that even if he was there was no way he could fly from the East coast to asia in time. My eyes cross, my brow furrows and I'm thinking WTF.
Turns out my friend had put me in the CC line AND saw fit to list me as the POC and the end of the email. Ok, I can handle that, not happy about it but I can handle it. The true WTF came after talking to my friend later that day.
He had been fixated on the Global aspect, and someone in some dark corner basement cubicle had seen fit to provide a premaid "Global" mailing list
in Outlook. I think you can guess what happened. At some point in the wee hours of the morning the country wide exchange server died. According the the local IT guys, it had processed roughly 3.5 million addresses before the machine sacrificed itself to the Blue Smoke Gods.
ITs only reply was "I guess we should take that list out."