Service Requirements in Maryland
Maryland was the first state to make community service a graduation requirement, in place since 1993 and first binding on the class of 1997. Under COMAR 13A.03.02.05, every public school student must complete 75 hours of student service that includes preparation, action, and reflection, or a locally designed program approved by the State Superintendent. Each local school system decides what qualifies and how hours are verified, and service can begin in the middle grades.
Not a public high school?
Catholic, independent, and public charter schools across Maryland set their own service and family volunteer commitments. Helper Helper tracks those too, from private school service programs to parent volunteer hours.
How Helper Helper Supports Maryland's 75-Hour Requirement
Built for Maryland's Service-Learning Model
Maryland asks for more than a tally of hours. Service-learning should meet a genuine community need and include preparation, action, and reflection. Helper Helper supports each part of that model:
- Preparation: post each opportunity with its details and sign-ups, so students understand the community need before they serve
- Action: community partners confirm participation with QR codes, validation keys, signatures, or coordinator approval
- Reflection: attach reflection surveys to service so students complete guided reflections right in the app
- Local rules: custom categories and goals match however your school system defines qualifying service, whether hours start in middle school or ninth grade
Maryland Success Story The GreenMount School
The GreenMount School · Independent K-8 School
“It is incredibly easy to use and adjust on the admin side of things, and so user friendly for our parents. Users can see available opportunities, log their own hours, and sign up to help with what the school needs. We can send push notifications for mass messaging, get immediate reporting, track service hours, and basically everything is now in one place. The team is also incredibly responsive and helpful.”
Maryland schools use Helper Helper for more than student service. The GreenMount School began in 1993 as a one-room parent co-op in Baltimore, and strong family participation is still central to how it runs. Today, parents see every opportunity the school needs help with, sign up, and log their own hours in the app.
For Co-Curricular Coordinator Gabi Salomon, the change is that everything now lives in one place. Push notifications reach every family at once when help is needed, and reporting shows family participation immediately instead of at the end of the year.
Family Volunteer Hours at St. Louis School
St. Louis School in Clarksville, a Catholic PreK-8 school twice named a National Blue Ribbon School, asks every family to give 30 volunteer hours each year (15 for single-parent and military families). As the school's volunteering page puts it: "All volunteer opportunities, from baking committee to parking lot duty to helping at events, are listed in the Helper Helper app."
Parents check in when they arrive for a posted opportunity, and anything done off the schedule is submitted as a past commitment for staff to approve. Even SCRIP purchases count, with those hours uploaded into each family's Helper Helper account twice a year. With every hour in one place, families can see where they stand against their commitment. Learn more about how Helper Helper supports parent volunteer programs.
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 Maryland schools, we sign your school system's Student Data Privacy Agreement and comply with Maryland's Student Data Privacy Act (Education Article §4-131).
Maryland Schools Using Helper Helper
