How Helper Helper Supports Indiana Schools and Honor Societies
Indiana Success Story Hamilton Southeastern High School
Hamilton Southeastern High School
“Before adopting Helper Helper as our hours management tool, we spent multiple hours a week approving and tracking service hours. This was a very laborious process without much organization-level data being produced. Since we have adopted Helper Helper, we spend much less time approving hours and have a lot richer insight into the service that our students are completing. We are better able to make decisions and enforce policies because we use this tool.”
Hamilton Southeastern High School in Fishers is one of the largest high schools in Indiana, and its National Honor Society chapter used to track service the way many chapters do: with a workaround. Students logged hours through Canvas quizzes, one quiz for every opportunity, and sponsors scored each response by the number of hours entered. It worked, but every hour rested on the honor of the student claiming it, approvals ate up multiple hours a week, and the chapter had almost no organization-level data to show for the effort.
Switching to Helper Helper changed the question from "did the student say they served?" to "did the organization confirm it?" Community partners now verify hours directly, which NHS sponsor Garrett Morgan calls the feature the chapter appreciates most: "We love being able to certify that the hours submitted do not rest solely on the honor of the student claiming them." Along the way the chapter has built what he describes as "an amazing database of community contacts" for future service collaborations. Students see exactly where they stand against the chapter's requirements, and goals nudge them to diversify the kinds of service they do, which the chapter credits with raising the quality of service, not just the quantity.
The Canvas integration ties it together. Students open Helper Helper from Canvas without needing a separate login, and hour totals sync back into the Canvas gradebook so administrators have a fuller picture of who is meeting requirements. Sponsors can now spot who is falling behind and send timely, targeted messages to exactly those students. The data does more than keep the chapter organized. Dashboards and spreadsheets of hours, paired with photos from the opportunities, help HSE show the community what its students are doing and support the school's applications for grants and community partnerships.
“Jump in! The tool is very customizable to the needs of your organization. They offer a large selection of features that you can leverage to best help your students serve their community. Helper Helper's support staff are also top-notch. They have supported us very well in our implementation and continued usage of the website.”
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.
Integration Highlight: Hamilton Southeastern students open Helper Helper from inside Canvas with single sign-on, and their hour totals sync back to Canvas so sponsors see seal and NHS progress where they already work. Goal completion status can be reported into the Canvas gradebook 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 Indiana schools, we sign your district's Student Data Privacy Agreement, including the Student Data Privacy Consortium agreement many Indiana districts use, and comply with FERPA and Indiana's student data protection laws, which limit the use of student information to educational purposes.
Service Requirements in Indiana
Indiana's redesigned high school diploma takes effect for every student beginning with the Class of 2029, and schools may opt students in as early as the 2025–26 school year. Two parts of the new diploma put documented service on a student's graduation record. Students who graduate without an honors seal must learn and demonstrate employability skills through a project-based, service-based, or work-based learning experience, and students pursuing the Enlistment and Service Honors Plus Seal can demonstrate leadership by completing at least 100 hours of public service. Indiana does not set a statewide hour count for graduation, so most schools layer their own expectations on top: NHS and NJHS chapter requirements, honor cords, and school-wide service programs.
Not working toward a seal or a state requirement?
Helper Helper isn't just for diploma requirements. We also power service hour tracking for National Honor Society and NJHS chapters, Key Club organizations, and Catholic, classical, and private schools across Indiana that run their own community service programs.
The Enlistment and Service Honors Seals
The new Indiana Diploma replaces Core 40 and the Academic and Technical Honors diplomas with one base diploma and six optional readiness seals: Honors and Honors Plus versions of Enrollment, Employment, and Enlistment and Service. The Enlistment and Service seals are designed for students headed toward the military, public safety, or public service. To earn the Enlistment and Service Honors Seal, a student completes an Introduction to Public Service course (or a year of JROTC or Civil Air Patrol), scores at least a 31 on the ASVAB and works through a career exploration program, meets an attendance goal, and demonstrates communication, collaboration, and work ethic through a mentorship with military personnel, veterans, or other public safety professionals.
The Enlistment and Service Honors Plus Seal starts with the Honors Seal and adds an ASVAB score of 50 or higher, enrollment in collegiate ROTC, or acceptance to a service academy, plus a demonstration of leadership. Students can show that leadership in one of three ways: a leadership role in a co-curricular or extracurricular activity, two seasons of a team sport, or at least 100 hours of public service. Any student who earns a seal also satisfies Indiana's Graduation Pathways requirements. Students who graduate without one must still complete an employability skills experience, and a documented service-based learning experience is one of the three ways to do it.
How Indiana Schools Track the Seal in Helper Helper
Every one of these requirements comes down to counting verified hours, and that is what Helper Helper does. Set a goal of 100 public service hours for the Honors Plus Seal, a separate goal for your NHS chapter's requirement, and another for a school-wide expectation, and each student sees progress toward all of them in the app. Goals can be limited to a date range or to specific categories, so hours that count toward the seal stay separate from hours that count only for a club. Reports show counselors which students have crossed 100 hours and which are still on the way, and the same data can flow into the school's SIS or LMS through our integrations.
One Platform for Every Indiana Service Program
Indiana schools recognize service in different ways, and many run more than one program at once. Helper Helper handles all of them in one place:
- Diploma seal hours: a goal of 100 public service hours for the Enlistment and Service Honors Plus Seal, with verified totals ready for the counselor who signs off on the seal
- Employability skills: document a service-based learning experience with supervisor verification, photos, and student reflections that connect the service back to what students learned
- NHS and NJHS chapters: put each chapter on its own team so sponsors track only their members, from middle school NJHS chapters to senior NHS induction, the way Hamilton Southeastern runs both
- Catholic, classical, and private schools: custom categories separate parish, campus, and community service, and students can attach photos to each experience
- School-wide programs and honor cords: run a yearly requirement alongside a four-year total, and let students carry a verified transcript into college and scholarship applications
More Indiana Schools Using Helper Helper
