Personal iPads in the enterprise - keeping work/personal apps separate

Question

Hi All,
I work in IT for a school district.  Recently, we got a grant for iPad training.  As part of that training, every teacher that attended the classes was given an iPad.  The problem is, that because of the way the grant was structured, the iPads ended up belonging to the teachers personally instead of belonging to the school district.  Since all these teachers now own their own iPads, we do not want to spend the money to buy them a second "work" iPad.
I am trying to come up with a solution that allows those teachers to use their own iPads in our school environment.  Specifically, I am looking for a way to be able to purchase needed iPad apps with school funds, install them on the users' personal ipads, but prevent the user from backing up/syncing those apps with their home Mac/PC.
The best idea we have come up with so far is to create a generic Apple ID for each teacher, such as "schoolname-01", "schoolname-02", etc.  The school's IT department would then be the only ones who would have the passwords for those accounts.  The IT department would then download and install the school owned apps on the teachers' personal iPads using one of the generic "schoolname-xx" accounts.  The theory is that the iPad registers and stores the Apple ID used to purchase each app, so we will be able to tell what apps are bought with school money and what apps are bought by the teacher for personal use.
Obviously, this is not an ideal solution, but we haven't been able to come up with a better one.  The biggest question we have is this:  each of these personal iPads is going to be sync'd with the teacher's home Mac/PC.  Since the home Mac/PC will not be authorized for the generic "schoolnamexx" Apple ID that was used to install the school apps,  will that mean that only the teacher's personal apps will be backed up when they sync with iTunes, or will iTunes back up every app, regaurdless of what Apple ID was used to purchase it?
Also, since an iPad can only sync with one Mac/PC, how can we back up the apps purchased with school funds?  Theoretically, we can re-download them from the app store, but only so long as they are still available for sale.
I would appreciate feedback from anyone who has had success integrating personal iPads into a work environment.

Answer 1

Hi gyrhead,
Thanks for the information.  I understand that the teachers will not be able to transfer app purchases from the school Apple ID to their personal Apple ID.  The concern we have is this:  what do we do when a teacher with a personal iPad with school software on it leaves the district?  I know we can re-download the software purchased with the school Apple ID onto a new iPad, but how do we get the school software off the teachers iPad?
If a teacher leaves under bad circumstances, there is not much hope that we will be able to remove the software from their iPad.  If their is a solution to remotely wipe apps installed under a specific Apple ID I would love to know about it.
However, if a teacher leaves and it is an amicable parting, we are hoping that the teacher will allow us to remove the school software from their iPad.  However, even if we remove the software from the iPad, couldn't the teacher just restore it from their home Mac/PC?  If the teacher syncs his/her iPad to their home computer, will it back up just the apps purchased under their personal Apple ID or will it also back up the apps purchased under the school Apple ID as well?  If it is the latter, then I don't see how we could prevent the teacher from reinstalling the school apps, even after we remove them from the iPad.
As long as the school can still install the apps it purchased on a new iPad, that last issue is not a huge concern for me.  However, the upper management/legal guys want to know the answer to this one.