For the head of school, the office manager, or the assistant principal at an independent, private, charter, or small public school of about 25–120 staff that runs cover internally: when teachers are absent, CoverLedger assigns each uncovered period to a present teacher who is free that period, keeps a running fairness balance so the same reliable teachers aren't burned, and turns every confirmed cover into the correct per-period stipend on the payroll export.
How it works
- Set the school up once — its own per-period stipend rate and its weekly cover cap
- Enter the teachers with their weekly timetable grids — Teaching, with the subject, or Free, period by period
- Log an absence — teacher, date, and the periods away — and the uncovered periods list themselves
- The assignment engine proposes covers: candidates free that period, present, and under the cap, ranked by lowest fairness balance, then subject fit — the manager confirms, or overrides with a reason
- Print the morning cover sheet
- Keep the fairness ledger per teacher, so the balance is visible and no one is burned by being reliable
- Export payroll per pay period — CSV and printable: covers × the school's own rate per teacher, with the totals reconciled
The daily cover problem
When a teacher is absent, every period they would have taught has to be covered by someone else — someone present, and someone free that period. CoverLedger works that problem: an absence comes in, the periods it leaves uncovered are identified, and each one is assigned to a present teacher who is free that period.
It is built for the people who arrange daily cover — the head of school, the office manager, or the assistant principal — and it works on the school's current timetable: the timetables the school has entered are the timetables the assignments are made from.
Setup — the school's own rate and cap
The school sets CoverLedger up on its own terms: its own per-period stipend rate, and its weekly cover cap — the most covers any one teacher takes in a week. Every stipend figure in the product is computed from the school's own rate. CoverLedger states no stipend amounts or rates of its own, and none appear on this page.
Teachers are entered with their weekly timetable grids: for each period, Teaching — with the subject — or Free. The assignment engine can only propose a teacher the timetable shows as free that period.
Absence in — uncovered periods out
An absence is logged with the teacher, the date, and the periods away. From the absence and the timetables, the uncovered periods list themselves — the periods that now need a teacher.
For each uncovered period, the assignment engine finds the candidates: teachers who are free that period, present that day, and under the school's weekly cover cap.
Assignment — ranked by fairness, confirmed by a person
Candidates are ranked by lowest fairness balance first, then by subject fit, so the cover is proposed to the teacher who has carried the least cover — not to whoever is easiest to ask.
The manager confirms the assignment, or overrides it with a reason. No assignment is final until a person confirms it; the engine proposes, and the school decides.
The confirmed day's covers go onto the morning cover sheet — printable — so the school starts the day with the plan on paper.
The fairness balance — so reliable teachers aren't burned
Every confirmed cover adds to that teacher's running fairness balance, kept in a fairness ledger per teacher. The balance is the record of who has already covered, and it is what the ranking reads.
Because the balance is kept and ranked on, the same reliable teachers are not asked again and again simply because they always say yes.
Payroll export — confirmed covers, at the school's own rate
For each pay period, CoverLedger produces the payroll export — CSV and printable: for each teacher, their confirmed covers × the school's own per-period rate, with the totals reconciled. Every confirmed cover becomes the correct per-period stipend on the export, at the rate the school itself entered.
The export is CoverLedger's standard export. No school's specific payroll format has been validated with any payroll office: each pilot school's specific payroll format is validated with that school's payroll office during the pilot. This page claims no compatibility with any named payroll system, because none has been validated.
Where it stands — the honest state
CoverLedger is forming its first school pilot group now. The door below is a school pilot application — applying starts a pilot conversation; it does not create an account, and it is not a sign-up for a running service.
CoverLedger sends no notifications to teachers today. Assignments are made and tracked in CoverLedger; the product does not message teachers. The school office notifies its teachers its own way, as it does today — CoverLedger assigns and tracks, and the office does its own notifying.
The payroll export is CoverLedger's standard export, as described above. A school's specific payroll format has not been validated with any payroll office; that validation happens with each pilot school's payroll office during the pilot.
Mid-term timetable-change handling is not yet built. CoverLedger works the daily cover problem on the school's current timetable; handling a timetable that changes mid-term is a named piece of work that has not been built yet.
No price has been set. A price range exists in our market research as a hypothesis; it has not been validated and it has not been decided, so no price is shown here and there is nothing to buy on this page.
School pilot application
This is a school pilot application — an application to join CoverLedger's first school pilot group, not an account sign-up and not a purchase. Tell us who to reach, your school, and how many teachers it has. If you like, tell us how many periods your school runs in a day, and how you arrange cover today. We will be in touch about the pilot group.