CJ Burleigh

TradeSchool Manager is a purpose-built student-information and gradebook plugin for trade schools, vocational programs, certification academies, apprenticeships, and hands-on training providers. Everything runs inside your own WordPress install – no SaaS accounts, no per-student fees, no monthly subscriptions for the free core.
Built and maintained by CJs Web Service (<a href="https://cjswebservice.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">cjswebservice.com</a>). Product home, demos, and documentation live at <a href="https://tradeschoolmanager.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">tradeschoolmanager.com</a>.
<h4>Why TradeSchool Manager?</h4>
Most school plugins are built for K-12 or higher-ed and bury trade-school workflows under features you’ll never use. TradeSchool Manager starts from the trade-school workflow:
<ul>
<li>Cohort-based programs that run across school years, with a one-click rollover that copies class definitions and assignments into the new year while preserving every prior year’s grades, rosters, and attendance untouched.</li>
<li>A gradebook that supports points, weighted categories, and pass/fail (because hands-on competencies aren’t a percentage).</li>
<li>A global Active School Year switcher so dashboards, rosters, and gradebooks always reflect the year you’re actually working in.</li>
<li>Admin-side, branded, print-ready PDF report cards and class rosters out of the box.</li>
<li>Student and teacher portals as front-end shortcodes you drop onto any WordPress page – no separate app to host.</li>
</ul>
<h4>What’s in the free core</h4>
<ul>
<li>Students & Teachers – Profiles with photos, emergency contacts, and portal credentials.</li>
<li>Sponsors & Authorized Contacts – Optional accounts for family members, employers, sponsors, or other approved contacts linked to one or more students.</li>
<li>Programs & School Years – Multi-year programs with enrollment, GPA computation, year rollover, and historical preservation.</li>
<li>Classes & Gradebook – Points-based, weighted-category, or pass/fail grading; assignment categories; extra credit; teacher-scoped views.</li>
<li>Attendance – Daily attendance tracking with per-class and per-student reports.</li>
<li>Announcements – Post school-wide or class-specific announcements visible in the portals.</li>
<li>Student, Teacher, and Sponsor Portals – Front-end shortcodes for grades, assignments, rosters, payments, and linked-student access.</li>
<li>CSV Import/Export – Move students, classes, and assignments without lock-in.</li>
<li>Admin PDF Reports – Unified PDF engine renders administrator report cards, class rosters, and statements on your school letterhead.</li>
<li>Active School Year context – One global switcher scopes every list, dashboard, and gradebook.</li>
<li>Email delivery via Brevo – Built-in, optional. 300 transactional emails/day on Brevo’s free plan; automatic fallback to native <code>wp_mail()</code> if the daily cap is reached. You can also skip Brevo entirely and use whatever SMTP plugin you already run.</li>
</ul>
<h4>Optional paid add-ons</h4>
The free core is fully functional on its own. These capabilities ship as separate add-on plugins from <a href="https://tradeschoolmanager.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">tradeschoolmanager.com</a> and are detected at runtime – any UI tied to an add-on stays hidden when that add-on isn’t installed.
<ul>
<li>Certificates – Auto-issued PDF certificates of completion with reminder emails.</li>
<li>Reports & Transcripts – Multi-year transcripts, summary report cards, GPA, credits.</li>
<li>Workshops – Short-form, year-agnostic courses with their own gradebook and completion certificates.</li>
<li>Applications – Public application forms and an admissions pipeline.</li>
<li>Invoicing & Contracts – Tuition invoicing, payment plans, e-sign contracts, and optional Stripe checkout.</li>
<li>Custom Fields & Student Documents – Per-program metadata plus audit-logged document uploads for government compliance.</li>
</ul>
<h4>Who it’s for</h4>
<ul>
<li>Trade schools (electrical, plumbing, HVAC, welding, automotive, construction)</li>
<li>Cosmetology, esthetics, and barbering schools</li>
<li>CDL, heavy-equipment, and aviation training</li>
<li>Allied health, nursing assistant, and phlebotomy programs</li>
<li>Coding bootcamps and short-form vocational programs</li>
<li>Apprenticeship and union training programs</li>
<li>Anyone running cohort-based, hands-on training out of WordPress</li>
</ul>
<h4>External services</h4>
The free plugin makes no calls to external services until you opt in to Brevo email delivery (which requires a free Brevo account and an API key). Optional add-ons may integrate with Stripe (payments); those add-ons are downloaded separately and have their own privacy disclosures.
<ul>
<li>Brevo (optional, free core): Transactional email via the Brevo HTTP API. Only the message payload (to/from/subject/body) is sent, and only when you supply an API key in TradeSchool > Settings > Email. Brevo terms: <a href="https://www.brevo.com/legal/termsofuse/" rel="nofollow ugc">brevo.com/legal/termsofuse</a>. Privacy: <a href="https://www.brevo.com/legal/privacypolicy/" rel="nofollow ugc">brevo.com/legal/privacypolicy</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h4>Support & contributing</h4>
<ul>
<li>Product site, demos, docs: <a href="https://tradeschoolmanager.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">tradeschoolmanager.com</a></li>
<li>Author: CJs Web Service – <a href="https://cjswebservice.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">cjswebservice.com</a></li>
<li>Issues and feature requests: through the WordPress.org support forum for this plugin</li>
</ul>

TradeSchool Manager

A complete LMS built for trade schools and vocational programs: students, classes, gradebook, attendance, school years, portals, PDFs and CSV.

Manoj Chacko

A project of Temple University’s Fox School of Business, Management Information Systems (Fox MIS) community initiative. For more information see http://community.mis.temple.edu. For more information about this plug-in contact Manoj Chacko at chacko@temple.edu.

TradeSchool Manager vs Community Gradebook