A Planboard alternative that keeps your plans on your own computer
If you're looking for a Planboard alternative, start with the honest part: Planboard is a good, free lesson planner used by a lot of teachers, and for many of them it's the right tool. Loop Teacher isn't trying to beat it on features or on price. It's a different trade — your plans and your students' information stay on your machine, and you buy the thing once instead of renting it.
Which one is right for you
Stay with Planboard if…
- You plan on several devices and want it all in sync
- You want a phone or tablet app — including on iPhone or iPad
- You use Google Classroom or Google Calendar and want them connected
- You share lesson plans with colleagues by link
- Free matters more than where the data lives
Look at Loop Teacher if…
- You'd rather your students' information never went to anyone's server
- You're tired of subscriptions and want to own the thing
- You plan on one computer and that's fine
- You want the planner to work when the school wifi doesn't
- You want what happened in class to change what you plan next
That's the whole decision, really. Everything below is detail.
Side by side
| Planboard | Loop Teacher | |
|---|---|---|
| Where your lesson data lives | On the vendor's servers | On your computer, in your browser |
| Account required | Yes | No — there's no login at all |
| Works with no internet | Limited | Yes, completely |
| Price model | Free core planner, cloud-hosted | US$49.00 once, plus local sales tax |
| Syncs across devices | Yes | No |
| Phone / tablet app | Yes, iOS and Android | No — computers only |
| Google Classroom / Calendar | Yes | No |
| Share a lesson with a colleague | Yes, by link | No — print or export instead |
| Reflection → next lesson | No | Yes, this is the core of it |
| Version history per lesson | — | Yes, snapshots at every change |
| Students referred to by code, not name | — | Yes, throughout |
| Can be discontinued by its owner | Yes, like any hosted service | No — it's a file you keep |
What actually changed about Planboard
Planboard was built by Chalk.com Education Inc. PowerSchool acquired Chalk in 2022 for a reported US$13.5 million. The apps are still available, and this page isn't claiming otherwise — but the old chalk.com/planboard page now redirects to PowerSchool's curriculum-and-instruction product, which is sold to districts rather than to individual teachers. That's a reasonable thing for a company to do. It's also worth knowing if you're a single teacher deciding where to keep five years of lesson plans.
The part teachers actually ask about
In December 2024, PowerSchool disclosed a breach of its Student Information System — a separate product from Planboard. Attackers used stolen credentials to reach the PowerSource support portal and export data from customer SIS instances. Court documents cited by reporting put the number of affected individuals at roughly 62 million, including names, addresses, birth dates, and in some cases Social Security numbers and medical information.
To be clear and fair: that was the SIS, not Planboard. There's no basis for saying Planboard's lesson data was involved, and this page doesn't say so. What it did do was make a question mainstream in staffrooms that used to sound paranoid — where does my class data actually live, and who else can reach it?
Loop Teacher's answer to that question is structural rather than reassuring: there is no server to breach, because there is no server. Nothing you type leaves your computer, so no vendor's security posture — mine included — can expose it.
The thing Loop Teacher does that Planboard doesn't
Most planners, Planboard included, are storage. You write the lesson, you teach it, and the lesson sits there. The loop stops when the bell rings.
Loop Teacher is built around the thirty seconds after the bell — when you actually know what worked. You mark a lesson taught and type a messy sixty-second reflection: what went wrong, who's lost, what you'd change. It turns that into one specific adjustment for the next lesson in that course. Not a re-plan, not a list of five options, not a unit redesign. One change, small enough that you'll actually do it, grounded in your own curriculum document where one applies.
Every lesson also keeps its own version history — created, edited, taught, adjusted — so in May you can see how a unit actually evolved rather than trying to remember.
What Loop Teacher does not do
Comparison pages usually skip this bit. Here it is, because you'll find out in week one anyway and I'd rather you found out now:
- It doesn't sync. Your planner lives on one computer. You can move it to another with Backup and Restore, but there's no live sync between two — that's the direct cost of having no server.
- There's no mobile app, and it does not run on iPhone or iPad at all. Apple doesn't let iOS browsers open files stored on the device. That's an iOS limitation rather than a design choice, but the effect on you is the same.
- No Google Classroom or Calendar integration. Nothing connects outward.
- No sharing or collaboration. It's a single-teacher tool. Print or export instead.
- It isn't free. Planboard's core planner has been free to individual teachers. This is US$49.00. If price is the deciding factor, Planboard wins and you should use Planboard.
If two or more of those matter to you, stop here — you'll be happier on Planboard, and I'd rather tell you now than refund you in a month. If none of them do, the demo below is the real app and takes about four minutes to form an opinion on.
Moving your plans across
There's no import from Planboard, and it would be dishonest to imply otherwise. What most teachers do is simpler than a migration: set up next term in Loop Teacher and leave the old plans where they are. You define your courses, periods and timetable once — about one prep period — and there's a CSV template if you want to bulk-load curriculum expectations. Your Planboard history stays readable in Planboard.
The demo is the real app.
Not a video and not screenshots — the actual planner, loaded with sample data. Click everything, plan a fake Tuesday, write a reflection and watch what it does with it. If it doesn't feel like it'll save you time, don't buy it.
One price · nothing else to buy, ever · 30-day money-back guarantee
Common questions
Is Planboard still available?
Is Loop Teacher cheaper than Planboard?
What happens to my plans if you stop making Loop Teacher?
Where exactly is my data stored?
Does it use AI on my students' information?
What if I buy it and it isn't for me?
Sources for the claims on this page. PowerSchool's acquisition of Chalk.com Education Inc.: Gowling WLG. Reported transaction value: MarketScreener. December 2024 PowerSchool SIS breach, timeline, method and scale: TechTarget. Planboard features and free-tier description: Common Sense Education.
Written by Mac, a CEGEP teacher in Quebec and the person who built Loop Teacher. Last checked July 2026. Planboard is a product of PowerSchool and this page is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to them. If anything here is out of date or unfair, tell me and I'll correct it.