Possible Python 3.12 issue

[feamster]

Students complain of the following error:
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'distutils'

Perhaps it is related to this?
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/77247893/modulenotfounderror-no-module-named-distutils-in-python-3-12

@jesteria I'm happy to help implement a fix here if we can pin down the root cause! Current students in a summer course are having some issues with this in Python 3.12. For the meantime I've asked them to use 3.11, but I will teach this again in October, so we should try to iron this out in the coming weeks.

I can also ask one of my TAs to help.