Seems like a reasonable precaution to me: a potentially rabid critter is nothing to turn a bunch of kids loose around.
I'm glad they caught the sucker and will send it's head to the lab. I've done the rabies shot thing (along with Mrs. Dawg and the (at the time) puppy. It wasn't as bad as everyone says, not at all, but it was expensive and a nuisance. WAY better to tack a day onto the end of the school year than to risk a few kids having to go through the series because no one knows whether the raccoon was rabid or not.