District-Wide Success St. Lucie Public Schools
St. Lucie Public Schools · Public K-12 District
“Helper Helper is the ultimate app for tracking and validating volunteer hours for each student, even in large high schools. Guidance counselors love the app because there is no more paperwork—just click. Parents will love the app because their child doesn’t need to turn in anything. Students love the app because they can easily watch their volunteer hours immediately increase as they complete opportunities. Helper Helper is everything your school needs to communicate and document volunteer hours for all your students.”
One of Helper Helper's flagship Florida partnerships is with St. Lucie Public Schools, the Treasure Coast district serving Fort Pierce and Port St. Lucie. With over 14,000 students across 9 high schools, and a state framework where 75 to 100 hours of qualifying community service or paid work unlock Bright Futures Scholarship eligibility, St. Lucie needed a platform that could handle volunteer tracking at true district scale.
Students sign in through single sign-on with their Skyward credentials and log hours on their phones, and the organization where they served confirms them. Hours earned in earlier grades were added when the district switched, so no student lost credit in the transition. As Port St. Lucie High School's guidance office puts it: “Paper forms or letters are no longer accepted; all hours must be submitted via Helper Helper.”
The result is one verifiable record for every student from ninth grade through graduation. Counselors stop chasing paper and missing signatures, students watch their progress toward their Bright Futures award in real time, and when scholarship season arrives the hours are already totaled by student, ready for the transcript.
Why Accurate Tracking Matters in Florida
With scholarship money on the line, Florida students need reliable, verified documentation of their service hours. Whether students are logging volunteer hours or qualifying paid work hours, Helper Helper's tamper-proof validation and official service portfolios give students and schools confidence that every hour is accurately recorded.
No other platform offers as many ways to validate service: QR codes, validation keys, supervisor signatures, and third-party coordinator confirmations. Every hour stands up to scrutiny when scholarship eligibility is on the line.
Signature Verification
Coordinators can approve volunteer hours with an on-screen signature that's fast, professional, and built right into the app. No paper forms, no scanning, no hassle.
How Helper Helper Supports Bright Futures Tracking
Getting Started
Helper Helper integrates directly with the student information systems (SIS) and single sign-on (SSO) providers your school already uses, including Google for Education, Microsoft, PowerSchool, ClassLink, Canvas, and more. Students sign in with their existing school credentials and rosters sync automatically.
Already tracking hours in spreadsheets, a homegrown database, or another platform? We'll import your existing data into Helper Helper at no additional charge so students don't lose credit for hours they've already completed.
Same-Day Support from Real People
No chatbots or ticket queues. When you need help, you’ll hear back the same day from Krista, Chelsea, or Matt. Our team knows schools and provides guided onboarding and Zoom trainings to get your program up and running.
Simple, Affordable Pricing
Helper Helper starts at $500 per year for up to 200 students and includes everything you need. Additional students cost $2.50 per student per year.
- Hour verification & reporting
- Goal tracking & real-time progress
- Service portfolios for students
- iOS, Android & web apps
Schedule a Demo
Pick a time that works for you. We’ll walk through how Helper Helper can serve your school or district and answer any questions you may have.
HECVAT-assessed, FERPA-compliant, encrypted in-transit and at-rest, hosted on AWS infrastructure.
This designation benefits both parties: for your school or district, it means you can deploy Helper Helper without the administrative burden of collecting individual parent consent for every student — the same way you onboard other essential technology platforms. For Helper Helper, it means we are held to the same strict data-handling standards as your own employees, giving your community confidence that student records are protected by the full weight of federal privacy law.
The FTC provides guidance confirming that schools may consent on behalf of parents in the educational context under COPPA. Please request to see our Notice of Data Practices for Children Under 13 and our Privacy Policy for further details.
The HECVAT was developed by the higher education community (EDUCAUSE) and is widely used by colleges and universities to assess the IT security, data protection, and privacy practices of third-party software vendors before adoption. While originally designed for higher ed, its comprehensive framework is equally valuable for K–12 schools and districts looking for a rigorous, standardized way to evaluate whether a vendor meets their security and compliance requirements.
AWS operates the most widely adopted and trusted cloud infrastructure in the world, with security practices that meet or exceed the requirements of federal agencies, financial institutions, and healthcare providers. Their data centers are protected by 24/7 on-site security, biometric access controls, redundant power and networking, and continuous monitoring.
AWS is independently audited against the most rigorous standards in the industry — including SOC 1, SOC 2, SOC 3, ISO 27001, FedRAMP, and PCI DSS — and provides industry-leading uptime guarantees backed by a 99.99% service-level agreement. This means your school can count on Helper Helper being available when students and advisors need it.
Administrators can be scoped to specific groups, schools, grade levels, or graduating classes — an NHS advisor sees only their NHS members, a school principal sees only their school, and a district coordinator sees the full district.
Outside community partners receive organization admin roles that let them post their own volunteer opportunities, manage sign-ups, and confirm attendance for events they host, without any visibility into student records, other organizations’ events, or school-internal data.
Helper Helper is fully FERPA-compliant, giving your community confidence that student records are protected by the full weight of federal privacy law. We never sell or share student data.
For Florida schools, we sign your district's Student Data Privacy Agreement and comply with Florida's Student Online Personal Information Protection Act (SOPIPA, F.S. 1006.1494).
Florida Schools Using Helper Helper
Miami Palmetto Senior High · Key Club Chapter
“Since the onset of Helper Helper, we have drastically cut time and now everything is in one platform easy to access by all members and up to the minute with accuracy.”
Manatee School for the Arts · Student Ambassadors
“The biggest benefit of using Helper Helper is the amount of time that has been saved for the students and myself. Helper Helper has simplified all aspects of volunteering from signing up for events to submitting hours for their Bright Futures scholarship.”
Bright Futures Service Requirements in Florida
Florida has no statewide service-hour requirement for a diploma. The Bright Futures Scholarship Program (Florida Statutes §1009.53) does: 100 volunteer service hours for Florida Academic Scholars, 75 for Florida Medallion Scholars, and 30 for the Gold Seal Vocational and Gold Seal CAPE awards (75 for students who entered grade 9 in 2024-25 or later), or 100 paid work hours, or a combination of volunteer and paid hours totaling 100, at every award level. The hours must be documented in writing on a record signed by the student, the student's parent or guardian, and a representative of the organization, the student must evaluate and reflect on the experience, and everything must be complete by high school graduation, when the school submits the hours with the transcript. Each district school board or nonpublic school sets the approved activities, the documentation process, and the deadline.
Tracking a local requirement too?
Several districts add a graduation requirement on top of Bright Futures: Broward County asks for 40 hours of service learning, Palm Beach County for 20, and Miami-Dade for a service project. Helper Helper also powers the service programs of National Honor Society chapters, Key Club organizations, and private high schools with hour requirements of their own.
The hour requirement depends on the award. Every award accepts volunteer service, paid work, or a combination:
| Bright Futures award | Volunteer hours | Paid work hours | Combination |
|---|---|---|---|
| Florida Academic Scholars (FAS) | 100 | 100 | 100 total |
| Florida Medallion Scholars (FMS) | 75 | 100 | 100 total |
| Gold Seal Vocational and Gold Seal CAPE Scholars | 30-75* | 100 | 100 total |
* Gold Seal awards: 75 for students who entered grade 9 in 2024-25 or later and 30 prior to that.
Source: Bright Futures Student Handbook, Chapter 1, 2026-27, Florida Office of Student Financial Assistance.
Built for the Details of the Bright Futures Rule
The 2026-27 Bright Futures Student Handbook asks for more than a total. Helper Helper handles each part:
- One goal per award level: set a goal for the 100 Academic Scholars hours and another for the 75 Medallion hours (or 30 for Gold Seal), so every student sees exactly where they stand and counselors can pull the list of who is still short on any day of the year
- Volunteer hours and paid work hours: custom categories keep the two apart in every report, and a goal that counts both shows a student with 60 volunteer hours and 40 paid hours as done
- Approved activities and your deadline: the district or nonpublic school decides what counts and when it is due, so students choose from your approved community partners and categories, a goal can be limited to a date range, and a survey attached to each entry can ask the questions your policy requires
- Signed by a representative of the organization: the supervisor signs on the student's phone, approves from a two-click email or text, or students check in at organized events by QR code, and the confirmation stays with each entry
- Reflection: students write a reflection with each experience, which the handbook also asks for
- Complete by graduation, on the transcript: every report downloads to Excel by student, and Helper Helper can sync verified hours back to your SIS so they reach the student record without retyping
- A local requirement on top: Broward's 40 hours or Palm Beach's 20 is a second goal with the categories you choose, tracked alongside Bright Futures
- Colleges and scholarship committees: every student can send a tamper-proof service portfolio with applications
“Helper Helper has made it easy to review volunteer activities for policy compliance through the Forms and Surveys feature and to periodically monitor student progress at each grade level through the Reports feature. We are also in the process of implementing the Goals feature to help students visualize and incentivize their progress while also making it easier to recognize those who are making consistent strides in achieving both Bright Futures requirements and our graduation requirement. I recommend Helper Helper to any school or school system that prioritizes people and purpose — serving others and serving together — over paperwork and seeks to engage students in service in a way that is both meaningful and intuitive to the way our students interact with each other and the world.”
Bright Futures hours, answered
What the 2026-27 handbook says and where Helper Helper fits. Anything else? Call (734) 531-8806 or email info@helperhelper.com.
How many volunteer hours does Bright Futures require?
It depends on the award. Florida Academic Scholars need 100 volunteer service hours, Florida Medallion Scholars 75, and Gold Seal Vocational and Gold Seal CAPE Scholars 30, rising to 75 for students who entered grade 9 in 2024-25 or later. At every level a student can instead complete 100 paid work hours, or a combination of volunteer and paid hours totaling 100. The numbers come from the 2026-27 Bright Futures Student Handbook.
Can paid work hours count?
Yes. Since the Class of 2023 (HB 461, 2022) a student may complete 100 paid work hours, or any mix of volunteer and paid hours that totals 100, at every award level. In Helper Helper paid work sits in its own category, so the two kinds of hours stay separate in every report while a combined goal adds them up.
Who has to sign off on the hours?
The handbook says the hours must be documented in writing and the record signed by the student, the student's parent or guardian, and a representative of the organization where the student served, and that each district school board or nonpublic school sets its own documentation process. In Helper Helper the student submits each entry and the organization confirms it at the source: the supervisor signs on the student's phone, approves from a two-click email or text, or students check in by QR code at organized events. Tell us how your district collects the parent's signature today and we will show you where it fits.
When do the hours have to be done, and how do they reach the state?
The district or school sets the deadline, and the hours must be complete by high school graduation. The school, not the student, reports them: eligible seniors' hours go to the Department of Education with the transcript. Helper Helper is the system of record behind that step. Every report downloads to Excel by student, and verified hours can sync back to your SIS so nobody retypes them.
What about a district graduation requirement, like Broward's 40 hours or Palm Beach's 20?
Set it up as a second goal. Each goal chooses which categories count, so a district can require 40 hours of service learning for the diploma, track Bright Futures separately, and show students both at once. Miami-Dade's service project, a silver cord, or an honor society requirement works the same way.
Does this apply to private schools?
Yes. The handbook puts the process on “the administrators of a nonpublic school” just as it does on district school boards, so private-school seniors need the same documented hours for the same scholarship. Many Florida private schools also run a service program of their own, and the hours are usually the same hours. Episcopal School of Jacksonville uses Goals to recognize students making progress on both Bright Futures and its own graduation requirement. See how private high schools use Helper Helper.
What happens to the hours students already have on log sheets?
They come with you. Send us a spreadsheet of what students have earned so far and we load it at no charge, so every student starts with the hours already on the books. St. Lucie Public Schools added hours earned in earlier grades when it switched, so no student lost credit.
How do students sign in? We use Skyward or FOCUS.
Helper Helper imports your roster from your student information system and signs students in with Google, Microsoft, or ClassLink, so there is no new password to remember. St. Lucie students sign in with their Skyward credentials through single sign-on, and Skyward and Focus both serve rosters over OneRoster or a nightly file. The integrations page has the full list.
What does Helper Helper cost for a Florida high school?
$500 per year covers up to 200 students, and each additional student is $2.50 per year. You can start with only the senior class and add the other grades later. There are no setup fees, and the pricing page will estimate your exact number.
How quickly can we start?
Most schools are live within a week. We load your roster, set up single sign-on, and import the hours students have already earned at no extra charge. Annual plans come with a 30-day money-back guarantee.