Planboard review

Planboard is a free online lesson planner for teachers. You set up your timetable once, and Planboard lays out your week so you can write a plan for each class and period, attach files and link curriculum standards. Chalk, a company from Kitchener, Ontario, built it, and PowerSchool bought Chalk in 2022. Planboard still works, but it now lives inside PowerSchool. The old planboardapp.com and chalk.com addresses redirect to PowerSchool’s Curriculum and Instruction pages, PowerSchool’s help docs cover it under that product, and both mobile apps list PowerSchool Group LLC as the developer.

Who it’s for

Planboard suits individual teachers who want a digital version of a paper planner with a timetable built in, and who don’t want to pay. It works well for secondary teachers with several classes and a rotating schedule, such as a day 1 to day 6 cycle or an A/B week. It also suits teachers who need to show which standards each lesson covers, since you can attach them as you plan.

Districts that want shared curriculum maps, unit plans across a department and admin oversight are the audience PowerSchool now sells to, under the Curriculum and Instruction name. If your district already uses PowerSchool, ask whether you have access through that.

What it does well

Scheduling is the strongest part. PowerSchool’s help docs show detailed controls for rotations. You can set a rotation schedule, show days as numbers or letters, decide how off-days affect the rotation, realign it after a snow day and add unexpected off-days. Teachers who have tried to keep a six-day cycle straight in a paper planner after a week of strikes or storms will see the value. You can also reuse a past semester’s content, so next year’s plans start from this year’s.

Planning a lesson is quick. You click a period, write the plan, attach files or links and add standards. You can save lessons to a resources library and import them again later, and you can plan whole units.

Sharing is flexible. The help docs list saving single lessons, several lessons or a unit as a PDF, printing the timetable and week views, and sharing a public link to a single lesson or to a day, week or semester. A public weekly link is handy for a substitute folder or for students who were absent. The help docs also cover importing classes from Google Classroom and Schoology and sharing lesson plans to both, as well as exporting your schedule to Google Calendar or as an ICS file.

Where it falls short

The main concern is its future. Planboard’s own website is gone, and the old addresses now land on PowerSchool product pages aimed at districts. The App Store shows the last iOS update in May 2023. The Android app is more current, with an update in November 2025 on Google Play. PowerSchool already closed Markboard, Chalk’s companion gradebook app; its App Store listing said access would end on September 30, 2023. Nothing we found says Planboard is closing, but if you build years of plans in it, export them to PDF at the end of each term.

Don’t count on a gradebook. PowerSchool’s current Planboard help docs cover scheduling, planning, sharing, standards and units, and say nothing about recording marks. Plan on using a separate markbook such as iDoceo or Additio.

Some useful features sit behind Chalk Gold, the paid upgrade. PowerSchool’s help docs describe Gold as an optional premium subscription with custom colors, Google Classroom integration and lesson search. If posting plans to Google Classroom is the reason you want Planboard, budget for Gold.

Pricing

Planboard is free for individual teachers, and both app store listings describe it as free. Chalk Gold is an optional paid subscription, which you start from the Upgrade button inside the app and cancel from Account Settings. We couldn’t find a Gold price published by PowerSchool when we checked in November 2026, so we don’t list one. PowerSchool’s sales team quotes district access through its Curriculum and Instruction product.

Privacy and data

PowerSchool owns Planboard, so its privacy policy and data agreements apply. The App Store privacy label, which the developer provides, says the app collects contact details, user IDs, search history, usage data and diagnostics linked to your identity. It lists developer advertising or marketing among the purposes, alongside analytics and app functionality. Planboard holds teacher plans rather than student records, which lowers the risk, but it is still worth reading the policy before you sign up with a school account. PowerSchool disclosed a large breach of data from its student information system in January 2025; that incident involved PowerSchool SIS, not Planboard, but it is a fair reason to ask questions. See our student data privacy checklist.

Verdict

Planboard is still a capable free planner, especially if you teach on a rotating schedule and want to link standards to lessons. Its future under PowerSchool is unclear and its help docs cover no gradebook, so export your plans regularly. Teachers who want a planner and markbook in one should pick iDoceo or Additio, and our teacher planner rankings list more options.

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