More than two decades ago, Red Rover’s founders were knee-deep in building, selling, and maintaining substitute placement software for schools during the internet’s toddler years.

Back then, dial-up internet was the norm and the concept of a smartphone was straight out of science fiction.

Along with the technologies that have transformed our lives since then, we have seen a substitute surplus turn into a chronic substitute shortage and witnessed financial upheavals, gig economy jobs, and consolidating vendors reshape the economy.

In 2020, drawing on 50 years of combined experience, Red Rover’s founders took stock of the aging software available to schools for managing their employees.

“Schools deserve better,” they thought. So they rolled up their sleeves and started building next-generation solutions.

At Red Rover, our mission is clear: to make the lives of education professionals simpler.

How? With modern, intuitive software solutions and outstanding service from friendly and knowledgeable people (no bots or phone trees here).

When we launched Red Rover, we hoped to find a few dozen school districts that shared our vision and enthusiasm for fresh solutions.

Within just a few months, more than 150 districts had adopted our first solution, Absence Management, to handle the mission-critical work of tracking employee time off and scheduling substitutes. We were blown away.

Today, thousands of school districts across the country are part of our community, and they help us make Red Rover better every day.

But we didn’t stop with Absence Management. Time Tracking, Hiring, Professional Development Management, and Records followed, each one shaped by the same kind of feedback from the education community. And we don’t plan on stopping there.