probablah
Hint: the animals are less intelligent for doing so.
Either way, the octopus is similarly prehistoric, despite readily prehensile appendages.
Nor does a lack of hands readily explain the level of elephant intelligence, given a prehensile trunk.
So, probably as intelligent as nomadic pre-historic humans. I wouldn't rate that as "highly" intelligent. Just somewhat intelligent.
These are still pre-historic dolphins, since they don't seem to record history for themselves yet. If they carry oral traditions, they seem to be limited to hunting techniques, and not specific events and personalities measured across time. There is no evidence of symbolism invented by dolphins.
This is probably unrealistic, since one person's enjoyable experience is often in direct conflict with another's misery.
Maybe it just needs to to go down so that all the noisiest, most adversarial assholes, likely to compliment each other's misery land in the same place, make the most noise, and it looks like a huge, ridiculous disaster, but through this, 99% of everyone else's time at school goes smoothly, far far away from the well-isolated, planned demolition of losers.
Is this how wars start?