For instructors
The school signs the contract. You decide whether it lives.
Most driver-ed software is admin software with an instructor afterthought. directio is the other way: the instructor is the daily user. If the today view isn't faster than your group text and Google Sheet, we lost. Here's how we make sure we don't.
Daily, in-car, one-handed
The today view is the app
You spend six to eight hours a day in a car. The phone is the interface. Every daily action works one-handed, in three taps, with poor cell signal, and survives a parking-lot interruption.
One screen for the whole day
Time, student, pickup address with one-tap maps link, vehicle assigned, lesson number in the student's progression, current skill focus, parent's phone, last lesson's notes inline. Everything you need before the next pickup, no scroll required.
BTW lesson plan auto-surfaces
For each BTW lesson the app shows the right plan from the platform's MN-aligned 6-hour progression — controls and parking lot on lesson 1, highway on lesson 4, test prep on lesson 6. No more 'what was I supposed to teach today?'
Carry-over notes
Whatever you flagged at the previous lesson's sign-off ("work on highway merging next") shows up automatically at the top of the next appointment with that student.
Pay transparency on every visit
Earned this period, pending payout, average per lesson — the three tiles at the top of your today page. No spreadsheet, no calling the office.
Sign-off
Two taps to wrap a lesson honestly
Sign-off is where you record what really happened. A freeform textarea is fine for context, useless as data. directio asks you to rate fifteen specific BTW skills with one tap each — and the data flows into the parent's progress summary, the credential-readiness decision, and your own scorecard.
Fifteen-skill BTW rubric
Pre-drive · vehicle control · lane positioning · lane changes · following distance · scanning · speed control · intersections · turns · backing · parallel parking · three-point turn · hill parking · highway · overall road-test readiness. Tap a proficiency level per skill — needs work / developing / proficient / independent — only for the skills you observed.
Lesson notes that go somewhere
Freeform notes are visible to school admin and the family. Carry-over focus for the next lesson is prefilled at the top of the next appointment with that student.
Credential readiness recommendation
When every skill is at proficient and overall road-test readiness is at independent, the credential workflow surfaces the student as ready for the school admin to issue. Your rubric data is what drives that recommendation — your judgment counts.
Two-ping geolocation evidence (when your school opts in)
One ping when you confirm the lesson start, one when you sign off complete. Not a tracked route. Not visible to parents. It's there so when a parent calls in furious that you 'took my kid on the freeway,' the school has actual evidence on either side. It defends good instructors first; police is a side effect.
Shifts and coverage
Open shifts, substitute coverage, one tap each
Most schools handle no-shows by texting the group chat at 4pm asking who can pick up the slot. directio runs an open-shift queue and a coverage-request flow that work the same way — but on your phone, with the school's pay rules already computed.
Open-shift offers
When admin posts an extra lesson (or a no-show creates a gap), eligible instructors see it on their /instructor page. Tap 'Claim shift' — first to write wins. The first-write-wins logic is in the database, not in race-prone JS, so two instructors tapping simultaneously can't both end up with the lesson.
Substitute coverage requests
Got a conflict on Tuesday? Tap 'Need coverage' on the lesson. It becomes an open shift on everyone else's queue. Whoever claims it first gets it; you're off the hook.
Vehicle check-out / check-in
At shift start: pick the car (compliance-blocked cars don't show up), enter the start odometer, fuel level, walk-around inspection checkbox. At shift end: end odometer, fuel level, optional 'flag an issue' field that auto-takes the car out of service if you report anything wrong.
Your credentials
The platform knows when your license is expiring
State instructor licenses lapse. Background checks expire. Continuing-ed hours need to be filed. directio tracks all of it, sends reminders, and auto-blocks scheduling the moment something lapses — so you find out before a parent does.
License expiration tracking
Reminders at 90 days, 60 days, 30 days, 7 days. Lapse = auto-block from being scheduled for new lessons. Surfaces on your school's owner dashboard so admins know to nudge before anything breaks.
Background-check tracking
Same auto-block pattern. The compliance card on your profile shows what's clean, what's expiring, what's expired.
Continuing-ed hours
School configures the annual requirement; your YTD hours are tracked. Soft warning, not a hard block — your school decides when CE shortfalls become an issue.
Tax documents on file
W-9 for 1099 instructors, W-4 + I-9 for W-2. Stored in audit-logged secure storage, never as a paper binder at the office. Year-end 1099-NEC PDFs auto-generated.
Cross-school identity
Work at multiple schools? One login, one calendar.
If you 1099 across two or three schools, directio knows. Your today view aggregates lessons from every school you teach at, badged so you see which is which. Pay rules carry forward separately for each school.
Merged calendar
Every lesson today, across every school you're an instructor at, in one ordered list. No need to log in to three separate systems.
Per-school pay rules
Each school configures its own compensation rules. Your earned-this-period number aggregates across all of them. Year-end you get one consolidated picture; per-school detail is right there if your accountant asks.
Cross-tenant double-booking guard
The scheduling engine respects your other schools' bookings when offering valid slots. Nobody at School A can book you for the same hour you're already teaching at School B.
If your school uses directio
Ask them to add your email as an instructor. The login auto-claims when you sign in.
Once your email's on the instructor roster, directio will magic-link you in (no password to set, ever). Your today view lights up with the next day's schedule.