@Moors7, could people who don't work for Particle stop replying in Particles' defense. I get it, you really like the Particle product, I do too. Particle has employees (who aren't involved with fixing the mesh issues) who are paid to deal with this kind of stuff, but they never reply.
I could have got the very confusing pricing page incorrect, but a few months back, it looked like each router was $9.99 USD per month. Which today is $13.13. CDN. Multiply by 15 Argons you get $196.95 CDN per month times that by 10 teaching months a year, I get $1969.50 CDN. I still don't know if you pay for Cloud and Mesh or if Mesh costs cover all the Cloud costs.
I have posted 100's of times on this forum, I have emailed Particle, you would think a Particle employee would reach out and perhaps talk to me one-on-one about my concerns.
Why do companies give free or cheap education pricing?
- Companies really like that Teachers can promote their product as free advertising while teaching a new generation to use their product.
- Companies try to reduce the negative publicity of charging schools regular prices.
Particle has never really shown much interest in what I do in the classroom so option #2 is my only choice.
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Most of the Particle software is Open Source except for the Particle Cloud that controls everything. I am fairly sure I can't setup my own Particle Cloud, although if that would solve all education costs I would definitely work with someone from Particle on that solution.
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Check out this link:
Is An End-Product Based On OpenThread Automatically Thread-Certified?
No. If a company uses OpenThread to build a product, they need to be a member of the Thread Group in order to gain the Intellectual Property (IP) rights to ship Thread products and to complete product certification, which ensures that products using Thread work together effortlessly and securely right out of the box.
As far as I can tell Particle has a licensing obligation to make their thread certified product work with OpenThread. I am not a lawyer, I can't even get the pricing correct so I may be wrong with this as well, but from an Advertising point of view
it sure looks like, on that blog, that the Particle devices work seamlessly with Google Nests OpenThread.
Yeh, who puts legal obligations as a priority. 
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In Closing:
If Particle allowed us hobbyists to connect the devices to OpenThread, we might be able to help with some of their connections issues. We possibly could show Particle which problems are to do with the Mesh Hardware and which problems are to do with their Experimental Cloud Border Router. If hobbyists can get Particle devices working well on OpenThread using and purchasing the Particle Mesh hardware, why is that a problem?
Has anyone ever considered that I am trying to help Particle!
Please, don't reply unless you are a Particle employee. I need to plan for next semester which starts on Monday and I have already wasted much to much time.