what software are you using and how is the class structured? It sounds like this might be a rotating group of students all using the same ipads? Does the school have access to some sort of storage medium that requires unique (per student) login credentials that the students could save their files to?
Rust’s cargo is great, I’d say it would be best to make the switch sooner rather than later once your code base is established. The build system and tooling alone is a great reason to switch