Hi, Ian, thanks for your report.

The notable thing about First Class at the moment is that it will be discontinued next spring!  So everybody is a bit leery about sinking much effort into working with it.  There used to be training sessions at the CPS tech training facility on using a set of advanced admin tools called the "First Class TechCo Toolkit" [originally open just to Tech Coordinators but then broadened].  There are no longer such trainings (for a system about to be abandoned), replaced by online help files.  The up side of that is that the help site is pretty good.  

Russ was examining that site today, and I hope he can provide the URL again.  

The general case is that a non-privileged user can set up a list for herself, and it will be available to her thru her FC account on any computer, but she cannot set it up as a public or school-based resource for others to use directly.  

However, someone who has been to the "TechCo Toolkit Training" and had their account marked for certain permissions, *can* make things like mailing lists that will become resources for others at the school.  You could ask around to see if Mr. Wood or somebody else has been thru that process.   Lacking that, the cumbersome process you describe may be the only one available.