Adding users to groups without the tedium

I’ve searched quite a few places for a better way to add users to groups on OS X Server (10.4), but I’m not turning up anything.

Here’s the situation:

I have a share on a file server that has folders for different classes. The teacher has full access to their class folder and students have limited access based on group membership. Currently, the only way I know of to add users to groups is to get the names of the students out of our student information system, move the list to the side of the screen, move Workgoup Manager to the other side and add the students to the group one at a time. So, this is the game I play at the start of every quarter.

Is there a better, quicker way to do this? I have looked into the command line alternatives (dscl and dseditgroup), but those seem like more work than they’re worth. Maybe I’m just lazy.