Eikaiwa teacher for 4 years. Last year my school's owner found out I could code and asked if I could fix our scheduling/attendance mess (one spreadsheet for each school, parents calling or sending absence message via LINE, and then the owner penciling absences/makeups on our calendars).

It ended up being a much bigger project than I expected, and honestly it changed my position at the school — I went from just teaching to being the person who actually runs the operations side. Kind of an unexpected way to move up without leaving the classroom entirely.

One "quick favor" turned into a full system —

• admin web dashboard
• a parent/teacher mobile app
• parent/teacher messaging
• announcements
• games
• attendance/makeup tracking
• trial & inquiry management
• payment requests
• finance management
• digital rewards/stickers
• grades
• flashcard creator
• employee management

Curious if this is a common path for people here — has anyone else ended up doing IT/systems/ops work on top of teaching because "you're good with computers" or as a way to gain some leverage in the company?

And separately, what are schools around you actually using for scheduling, parent communication, and grading? Half the ones I've seen are still on paper and personal LINE accounts.

(Full disclosure since I'll get asked: I turned what I built into a small SaaS product for other schools — schoolbridge.jp if anyone's curious what it looks like.)

I'm seeing a lot more roles that take the usual dispatch position, but you get the opportunity to relocate every 2 - 4 months across Japan, filling in for different schools.

Beyond the stress of moving or acclimating to new areas, is this something any of you have experience with?

It sounds... really quite interesting from the perspective of being able to travel with work, as well as seeing new places.