I've been teaching middle school band for 13 years. In that time, I've run band camps, big trips, small trips, concerts, football games, competitions — you name it. Most of it repeats every year. And for most of those years, I was recreating the same to-do lists from scratch every single time.
The to-do lists lived in Google Drive — buried in folders, one per event. The communication was split across emails, spreadsheets, and group texts. Every August felt like starting from zero. And every year, somewhere in the middle of doing fifteen things at once, something got overlooked.
I didn't need another app. I needed one place — where every event had its own tasks, where my staff knew what they were responsible for, and where next year's setup was already 90% done the moment this year ended.
That's what Rostrum is.
The thing other directors notice first
When I show Rostrum to other directors, the reaction is always the same. They see the school-year rollover — where every project, task, subtask, and comment carries forward to the next year with dates already shifted — and they just get it. No more rebuilding. No more forgetting how you pulled off last year's spring trip. It's all there, ready to go.
And if a director moves to another school and you bring someone new on board? Reassign everything to the new person in a single pass. The work stays. Only the name changes.
Your personal secretary, with the best tool
Rostrum is built to work with Claude — and once you try it, it's hard to go back. I can tell Claude “I have 10 field trips this year, here they are — give all of them the same set of steps before each trip” and it just does it. Every project, every task, already in Rostrum. It feels like having a personal secretary who actually knows your program.
Who it's for
I built this for band directors. But it turns out the problem isn't unique to band. Choir directors, orchestra directors, drama teachers, campus admins — anyone managing a program full of events, staff, and moving pieces — they're all dealing with the same chaos. My own principal now uses Rostrum with his admin team.
If you run a program and you're tired of the mess, this was built for you.
— TJ Emsley, Middle School Band Director & Creator of Rostrum