Sounds like your DD's school could use some new cellos!

They're not that easy to tune for an inexperienced person, so I don't think I would expect your DD to tune it herself. And if it had to be tuned twice, that suggests that it was either really, really far out of tune, or that it doesn't hold its tuning very well. If the latter case, it's a flaw of the instrument (or its worn-out strings or pegs). Rentals!

...pronounced like the long vowel and first letter of the alphabet...