After SubSidekick: what California substitutes are using now

For most of two decades, a substitute teacher's morning started the same way: an alert from a third-party app saying a job had opened in the district's absence system. One of the two apps that defined that habit is now gone.

What SubSidekick was, and what happened to it

SubSidekick sat between substitutes and the software districts use to fill daily absences. It monitored systems including Frontline Education Absence Management (formerly Aesop), Substitute Online, ReadySub and atrieveERP, checked roughly once a minute for newly posted assignments, and pushed matches out by app, text, email or desktop alert so you could claim them quickly.

The service has shut down. Its own farewell note put the scale of it plainly — “After 16 years and 47 million job alerts, the SubSidekick service has been shut down” — and described it as “an absolute privilege to help thousands of substitute teachers find work and keep local classrooms running smoothly.” The iOS app was archived on the App Store in May 2026, and subsidekick.com no longer resolves.

Where SubAlert stands

SubAlert, the other long-running name in this category, is a different story, and it is worth being precise rather than lumping the two together. As of August 2026 SubAlert is still listed on the App Store and its own website carries no shutdown notice. It describes the same job it always did: watching Frontline Absence Management for open assignments and notifying you by app, text, phone call, desktop alert or email, with booking from the notification.

The one thing worth noting is maintenance cadence. Its iOS listing shows version 4.1, last updated in 2019. That is not an announcement of anything, and plenty of stable software goes years between releases — but if a single app is the only thing standing between you and a full week of work, it is worth having a second route to the same information. Check the app's own channels for its current status; the description here is only what was publicly visible when this page was last updated.

If what you need is assignment alerts

Start with the system of record rather than a layer on top of it. The practical steps are the same in most districts:

• Ask your sub desk or HR office which absence-management system the district runs. Frontline Absence Management is common in California, but Substitute Online, ReadySub and others are all in use.
• Ask what notification options that system offers you directly — email, text, or its own mobile app — and turn them on. These come with the system your district already pays for.
• Keep your availability, grade preferences and travel radius current in that system. Assignments you never see are often assignments you filtered out months ago.
• Ask whether the district or individual schools keep preferred-substitute lists, and how you get onto them. In a lot of buildings that relationship beats any alert.

Where posting alerts fit in

Assignment alerts keep this week full. Posting alerts are a different job: they are about the next role rather than the next Thursday. For substitutes, those two things overlap more than people expect, because a great deal of what districts advertise publicly is exactly what a working sub wants to see — long-term substitute assignments, substitute and eligibility pools, instructional aide and paraeducator openings, and the certificated vacancies that a sub credential is often a route into.

That is the part AlertEd covers. You save a search — role, district, and how far you are willing to travel — and it watches new California school job postings around the clock, then tells you what matched and exactly how many hours ago each one was posted.

On the free plan you get two saved searches and a daily digest for each one, delivered at a time you choose (8am by default), plus a recap every Monday morning. AlertEd+ is $4.99 a month or $29.99 a year with a 7-day free trial, and adds up to 20 saved searches, a push within about five minutes of a match, multi-county and entire-county alerts, advanced filters, and deadline and closed-early alerts.

The point of any of this is not to get ahead of the person next to you. It is that a posting you would have wanted should not go by unseen. Some close early. Some are only up for a few days. A digest that arrives every morning means the list you are working from is the current one — and that is worth something whether or not you ever pay for anything.

A practical setup, if you are rebuilding your alerts

1. Fix the assignment side first. Native notifications in your district's absence system, availability and preferences current, preferred-sub lists asked about.
2. Then set up posting alerts for the roles you would actually take — including long-term sub assignments and pools, which are easy to miss because they are not always titled the way you would search for them.
3. Use a travel radius you would genuinely accept. A wide radius that produces alerts you ignore trains you to ignore alerts.
4. Check the freshness stamp before you spend time on an application. A posting from three hours ago and one from three weeks ago are different propositions.
5. Note the deadline type. “Until filled” means the clock is real even though no date is printed.