No, those people are not plants

I can only speak for my daughter’s school but no… They are not specifically trained to interact in this way.

I’ve never heard of training guides to do this.

When D1 was at H she used to occasionally overhear the tour guides tell the groups that the school deliberately assigned quiet, goody-two shoes type kids to live in Mass Hall, so that they wouldn’t disturb the university President’s and other administrative offices located on the lower two floors. She was a proud Mass Hall alumna and considered this to be a complete falsehood - that Mass Hall kids were no different from any others on campus.

Well once she was walking by a tour just as the guide was repeating this canard, and so she stopped and set him straight. The poor guy was thrown completely off his game by the interruption. And being a quiet, goody-two shoes type she felt horrible for what she had done. She apologized profusely and never again interrupted another tour group no matter what kind of nonsense she overheard them saying.