Were they your previous versions? If so, can you build a marketing agenda based on them? (Use cases, testimonials, and what not)
If not, then the first step I recommend doing is:
Find a decent sized school, and offer it to them for free. Like Bryan said before me, schools are cheap. The administration already has enough trouble without wondering why they should purchase your product. By removing that, they will be a little bit warmer to a pitch.
You do of course, still have to pitch :1. But in it, you would want to maybe work out an arrangement where you can collect relevant data for future pitches and what not. Impact on Student Education overall :2, student/teacher testimonials.
Why?
Schools seem very receptive to what other schools are doing, students are very social and there always seems to be talk about what other people have. I've noticed that among colleges a good deal of the intranet is shared (same email solution, same billing, same online courses). Or even to use a bigger and far more broken example, look at how quickly Facebook took off among college students.
After your foot is in the door, you can refer back to how it helped this school (because if something is beneficial and THEY have it, WE want it too.
As for your sidenote. IMO:
It may drive off some 'core' gamers (The group that commonly considers themselves the majority of gamers.) but looking at the success of casual games. The numbers seem to say that either the larger part of the market is of a younger / older age. Or they are the only people spending the money :p