New York Success Story Croton-Harmon High School
Croton-Harmon High School · Public High School
Croton-Harmon High School requires 25 hours of community service for graduation and 40 for National Honor Society eligibility, and many students go far beyond both. Since replacing paper forms and binders with Helper Helper in 2021, the school has logged more than 40,000 verified service hours, runs reports on what kinds of service its students are doing, and recognizes every student who passes 100 hours at its annual schoolwide awards ceremony.
Croton-Harmon High School sits on the Hudson about an hour north of Manhattan, and community service is woven into student life there. The Board of Education requires 25 hours for graduation, the National Honor Society chapter asks for 40, and many students go far past both. Before 2021, keeping track of it all meant paper forms and a thick binder for each graduating class. There was no easy way to run a report, no summary of what kinds of service students were completing, volunteer recruitment relied on word of mouth and announcements, and a student who had quietly put in hundreds of hours had no meaningful way to show it.
When the school moved to Helper Helper, the goals were clear: better reporting and data visibility, an easier way for students to find volunteer opportunities, stronger connections between students and community members, and deeper, sustained engagement. Students now open the app to see what local organizations have posted, sign up directly, and get a reminder from the school when new opportunities go live. Community partners verify the hours where the service happened, so every hour on a student's record is one the organization confirmed. Assistant Principal and Director of K-12 School Counseling Mark Maxam describes service at Croton-Harmon as self-reinforcing: when students have a positive experience, they come back for more.
The counseling team and school committees now run detailed reports to monitor engagement trends, see what types of service students pursue, guide students toward opportunities that match their interests, and identify top volunteers for recognition. That data feeds scholarship consideration and letters of recommendation, because a counselor who can see sustained commitment, not just the minimum hours, has a stronger story to tell about a student. Students who log more than 100 hours are recognized at the annual schoolwide awards ceremony, and the little recognitions go a long way. Five years in, the school has passed 40,000 logged hours, and the number is still climbing.
How Helper Helper Supports New York Schools and Districts
More New York Schools Using Helper Helper
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 New York schools, we sign your district's Education Law §2-d Data Privacy Agreement, including the Parents' Bill of Rights for Data Privacy and Security, and comply with FERPA and Part 121 of the Commissioner's Regulations, which prohibit selling student data or using it for marketing.
The New York State Seal of Civic Readiness
The Seal of Civic Readiness is a distinction the State Education Department adds to a student's diploma and transcript to recognize a high level of civic knowledge, skills, mindset, and experience. To earn it, a student completes the requirements for a Regents or local diploma and earns six points, with at least two in Civic Knowledge and at least two in Civic Participation. Civic Knowledge points come from social studies credits, Regents exam scores, and advanced coursework. Civic Participation is where service comes in: a service-learning project of at least 25 hours paired with a reflective essay, presentation, or product earns one point, and a student can earn it more than once. At least 40 hours of extracurricular participation or work-based learning with a reflection earns another half point, a high school civics project earns a point and a half, and a Civics Capstone Project earns four.
How New York Schools Track the Seal in Helper Helper
The 25-hour service-learning project is exactly the kind of thing Helper Helper was built to document. Set a goal for the seal, limit it to the categories that qualify as service-learning, and students see their own progress toward it in the app while the community partner verifies each hour. Service-learning reflections collect the written reflection alongside the hours, and reports give the seal coordinator a verified record to attach to each application. The same student can be working toward a district graduation requirement and an NHS chapter's 40 hours at the same time, and each goal keeps its own count.
One Platform for Every New York Service Program
New York schools recognize service in different ways, and many run more than one program at once. Helper Helper handles all of them in one place:
- District graduation requirements: set a goal for your district's hour count, whether it is 15 hours or 50, and let students watch their own progress toward it in the app while counselors see who is on track in reports
- Seal of Civic Readiness: a 25-hour service-learning goal with reflections attached, verified by the organizations where students served, ready for the seal application
- NHS, NJHS, and Key Club chapters: put each chapter on its own team so advisers track only their members, with verified hours that never rest on a student's word alone
- Independent and Catholic schools: custom categories keep campus, parish, and community service separate, and photos and reflections turn a list of hours into a record of what students actually did
- Schools across the state: SIS roster sync and single sign-on through Google, Clever, ClassLink, or Microsoft, so a Staten Island high school and a North Country central school get the same set-it-and-forget-it setup
- Honor cords, scholarships, and college applications: students carry a certified service transcript with every opportunity, organization, date, and validated hour