School computers are riddled with spyware & proprietary software, the fact that they use windows is bad enough, but then you are forced to use edge or chrome and other proprietary software and often you are blocked from installing open source alternatives like librewolf or duck duck go may be blocked.
What I am asking is, how can we get around this, do i just need to bring my own laptop using FOSS privacy respecting software. or is there another way around this. Thanks for the help.
You won't get anywhere if you end up having to use their devices.
If you're able to bring and use your own, just use it how you normally would. Maybe throw on a VPN while you're at it though, (assuming you have to use their Wi-Fi network) since a lot of these institutions use filters on the router level, but if all they see is a stream of arbitrary traffic from your device to a VPN company's server, they won't get much info or blocking ability.