Your specials rotation, before your coffee's cold.
Two tools for the school-leader jobs that eat your week: Master Scheduler builds your specials & common-prep rotation, places lunch periods, and flags every conflict in plain English — and Walkthrough turns classroom observations into timestamped notes with one-tap exports. Simple school pricing, no per-teacher seat math.
Stop scheduling on a yellow legal pad.
Every fall, principals lose weekends to grids on whiteboards and color-coded post-its. Master Scheduler does the first draft for you so you can spend the time deciding, not drawing.
Without it: six hours of erasing.
- Yellow legal pad & a sharpie
- Specialist double-booked — nobody notices until Tuesday
- Grade-team common prep keeps slipping
- One change → redraw the whole grid
With Master Scheduler: click, draft, print.
- First-draft rotation in under 15 minutes
- Conflicts flagged in plain English with a fix
- Common preps locked per grade, every day
- One adjustment → regenerate, done
Four things, done properly.
Not a feature buffet. Master Scheduler does the parts of building a rotation that take the longest, and gets out of your way for the rest.
Art, music, PE, library — rotated so nobody's in two rooms at once.
The scheduler reserves each specialist's (day, period) slot before placing the next one. If one pattern can't fit every grade, it auto-adds a second pattern and tries again.
- Specialist double-bookings flagged before they bite
- Honors per-special grade eligibility (e.g., library only K–3)
- Block specific periods if a specialist isn't there that day
- Manual cell locks survive regenerate
Each grade gets the same prep, every day. Locked.
Grade-team common preps are the foundation of a workable rotation. The wizard places them first, protected from being overwritten by a wandering specialist. Turn on Automate prep periods and the engine shuffles valid layouts — same draft on every Generate, reproducible.
- One protected common-prep period per grade, daily
- Automate or pick by hand — either survives regenerate
- Variation index lets you cycle through valid options
- Manual mode is byte-for-byte deterministic (no surprises)
Lunch periods placed, with teacher and student conflicts flagged.
Pick which periods are teacher lunch and which are student lunch in your bell schedule. The wizard auto-places each teacher's lunch in a free allowed period and flags any conflict in plain English. Per-period start / end / recess overrides are one slider away.
- Teacher lunch + student lunch periods on the bell schedule
- Auto-assigned teacher lunch with conflict flagging
- Per-period start / end / recess overrides
- Honest scope: lunch is placed and checked, not solved against capacity
Every flag comes with a sentence you can read out loud.
No cryptic solver output. When something can't be placed, you see exactly which grade, which period, why — and a suggested fix you can apply with one click. Service-configuration warnings (e.g., pull-out scheduled during a protected block) show up the same way.
- One conflict, one explanation, one suggested fix
- Service-config warnings for push-in / pull-out (ENL, Speech, OT, AIS)
- Surfaces before you publish — not after staff sees it
- Unplaceable cells stay unplaced — never silently forced into a double-book
From blank slate to printable rotation — in four steps.
Set up your school day
Periods, bell or cycle, and how many teaching days are in your rotation. Bell-or-cycle lives behind a tidy disclosure so you don't see it unless you need it.
Add grades & specials
Your grade bands (K–8 + an optional Early Childhood track) and the specials you run. Each grade's common prep is set here — automate it or pick by hand.
Set lunch periods
Mark which periods are teacher lunch and which are student lunch. The wizard auto-places each teacher's lunch in a free allowed period — conflicts are flagged.
Generate & print
One click. Prep schedule, by-class view, cluster cards, EC track and a print packet appear. Conflicts come with plain-English fixes. Export CSV or print.
Observation notes without the clipboard
Open it on the way into the classroom. Timestamped notes, one-tap quick stamps, and a glow / grow / next-step wrap-up that's ready for the post-conference before you're back at your office.
Timestamped, one-tap notes
Quick-stamp buttons for the moments you see constantly, plus free typing — every entry carries its time automatically.
Glow / grow / next step
A structured wrap-up that turns raw notes into feedback teachers can actually use — with an optional, clearly explained AI summary.
One-tap Word / PDF / CSV
Export a clean write-up for the post-conference or your records — no reformatting night.
Local-first & private
Observation notes stay on your device — nothing about your teachers is uploaded or stored on a server unless you ask for the optional AI summary.
Free preview — open it in your browser and try it on your next walkthrough. No sign-in needed.
Built by a teacher who's sat in those scheduling meetings.
Hi — I'm Mr. B. I teach K–8 full-time. Every September I'd watch my building's leadership team lose a weekend to a whiteboard. Master Scheduler started as my own spreadsheet, then a small app, then this. Every feature has a story behind it from a real planning meeting.
It's not a venture-backed enterprise platform. There's no sales team and no SDR — just a working teacher who answers email. Simple school pricing, with a Scheduling Rescue option if you want help getting the first schedule built. If something doesn't fit your building, email me and I'll fix it — that email goes to me, not a queue.
— Mr. B, Big Brain Labs
Simple pricing. No per-teacher seat math.
Master Scheduler creates a first draft, flags conflicts, and produces print/export packets. Honest scope: this is not a full SIS or HR staffing system. Walkthrough is currently a free preview — no license needed while it's in preview.
Master Scheduler — Individual
One scheduler · the full app · same engine as the school license
- Full Master Scheduler on your own account
- Specials rotation, common preps, lunch placement, conflict explainer
- Print packets & CSV exports for every view
- Schedule data stays on your device — no uploads
14-day free trial · built by a teacher
Master Scheduler — School License
Whole school · one yearly license · no per-seat math
- Full Master Scheduler — no class, grade, or specialist limits
- Specials rotation, common preps, lunch placement, conflict explainer
- Services (push-in / pull-out) & Early Childhood track
- Print packets & CSV exports for every view
- Schedule data stays on your device — no uploads
- Email support from a working K–8 teacher
POs welcome · signed DPA on request
Scheduling Rescue Package
For elementary schools that need a clean rotation before the year starts
We help your team use Master Scheduler to build a first draft, flag conflicts, and produce a printable schedule packet.
- Master Scheduler school license
- 45-minute onboarding call + setup review
- Conflict audit + printable packet support
- 30 days of priority email support
District Pilot
Multiple buildings under one agreement
- Signed DPA, W-9, and purchasing paperwork
- Onboarding support for your scheduling team
- Volume pricing for the district
A School License covers your whole school. Buying for a district? Email us for a PO or quote. Privacy reviewers: see the district & compliance handout.
Things principals actually ask.
How does Master Scheduler handle protected blocks like Fundations?
You define grade-level instructional blocks (Reading, Writing, Fundations, etc.) in Setup → Grade Blocks, mark Fundations as Protected core, and any pull-out service that would land on it gets flagged in the Services audit. The block-aware view is read-only against the generator in v1 — the engine doesn't pull from protected blocks because it doesn't schedule student services yet; it flags them so you can.
What about pull-out services like ENL, Speech, OT, AIS?
You define services and their allowed blocks per grade (e.g., ENL push-in for ELA, AIS pull-out from Flexible only). The Services tab shows a per-grade audit matrix, flags missing rules, and warns on pull-out from protected blocks. v1 is a planning & audit surface — not a session scheduler. We're transparent about that; the empty state on the Services tab says so.
Where is my data stored?
On your device, in browser localStorage. Nothing is uploaded; we don't run a server for your schedule data. Save / Load JSON gives you full export and import — bring it to another browser, hand it to your AP, archive it. For privacy reviewers, our calm one-page district & compliance handout covers FERPA, COPPA, and NY Ed Law 2-d.
Can I export to CSV or print packets?
Yes. Print / Export tab prints a full packet (prep schedule, class view, cluster cards, EC, conflicts, services audit) with proper page breaks — portrait or landscape per view, automatically. CSV exports: one file per view (Prep Schedule, Class Schedule, Cluster Cards, Early Childhood, Conflicts, Grade Blocks, Services, Allowed Blocks). Open them in Google Sheets via File → Import.
Does it work for K–5? K–6? K–8?
Built around K–8, but you choose which grades exist for your building — the engine works the same for K–5, K–6, or K–8. The capture wizard on Step 1 lets you mark your grade span and school model; that informs copy but does not branch the generator. 3K / Pre-K runs as a separate Early Childhood track with its own coverage.
What if my building doesn't fit any of this?
Email me. Big Brain Labs is one teacher answering one inbox — not a support queue. If something doesn't fit your building, we figure it out. The promise here is honesty about scope: Master Scheduler builds specials & common-prep rotations well; it doesn't claim to be a bell-by-bell whole-school master schedule, because it isn't one. Yet.
Can I try it before paying?
Yes — Master Scheduler has a 14-day free trial. You can build a full draft, see the conflict explainer, and print a packet without paying. The School License applies only if you decide to keep it.
Does Walkthrough send my observation notes anywhere?
Not unless you ask it to. Notes stay on your device. The optional AI summary (beta) sends one observation's notes — with the teacher's name removed — to bigbrainlabs.org to draft a summary; nothing is stored there. Read the full explanation.
Draft your school's rotation before lunch.
Open Master Scheduler now, or book a 15-minute principal-focused walkthrough — no sales pressure, a working teacher shows you the flow.