Pennsylvania Success Story Bethlehem Area School District
Bethlehem Area School District · Public School District
Every Bethlehem Area School District graduate completes 60 hours of community service, and Helper Helper is the district's community service platform at both of its high schools, Freedom and Liberty. More than 4,000 students use it to find volunteer opportunities with approved agencies, log their hours, and follow their progress toward graduation.
Bethlehem spreads its requirement across all four years of high school, and then some. Incoming ninth graders can serve up to 30 of their 60 hours the summer before they arrive, a club or sport earns a one-time 15-hour credit that the Community Service Office enters itself, and job shadowing through the Career Pathway program can count for up to 15 more. Students who keep going earn a Silver Cord at 135 hours and a place at the Community Service Award dinner at 200. The Silver Cord, the award dinner, and the club and sport credit each appear as a goal in Helper Helper, so students open the app and see where they stand.
Verification is built into every entry. Hours count only with agencies the district has approved, and that list lives in the app, so students pick the organization from a menu instead of typing a name. Each entry asks four reflection questions and the name and email address of the agency's coordinator, who confirms the hours before the school's Community Service Office gives its final approval.
Integration Highlight: Bethlehem connects Helper Helper to Microsoft Entra ID for single sign-on, so students at both high schools sign in with their district email and the password they already use, on the web or in the mobile app.
How Helper Helper Supports Pennsylvania Schools
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 Pennsylvania schools, we sign your district's Student Data Privacy Agreement and comply with FERPA and Pennsylvania's Breach of Personal Information Notification Act (73 P.S. § 2301 et seq.), which covers school districts and the vendors that hold their data.
Pennsylvania Schools Using Helper Helper
South Fayette Township High School · Public High School
“Helper Helper allows us to easily promote opportunities and connect students eager to contribute to their community with volunteer placements. It is also an incredibly convenient tool for students and organizations looking to quickly log and verify volunteer hours and find information about events.”
Service Requirements in Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania has no statewide service hour requirement for graduation. Since the class of 2023, Act 158 of 2018 has given students five pathways to a diploma, and on the evidence-based pathway the satisfactory completion of a service learning project is one of the pieces of evidence a student can present. Hour requirements are set locally. The Bethlehem Area School District asks every graduate for 60 hours of community service, and Whitehall High School has a 12-hour requirement. Catholic and independent schools, honor societies, and service clubs set their own.
No requirement at your school?
Helper Helper isn't just for required programs. Pennsylvania schools also use it for National Honor Society chapters, Key Club, Catholic school service programs, and other student groups.
One Platform for Every Pennsylvania Service Program
Pennsylvania 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 the hours your district requires, see who is on pace at each high school, and report across the district
- Honor cords and recognition: add a second goal for a silver cord or a service award, so the students who go past the requirement are easy to find when graduation comes
- Act 158 service learning projects: collect reflections with every entry and give each student a verified record for their career portfolio
- Approved organizations: keep your list of approved agencies in the app, and let each community partner confirm the hours served with them
- NHS, Key Club, and student groups: advisors track only their own members on their own team, post service projects with sign-ups, and check students in on site with a QR code or validation key
- Records that go with the student: every student leaves with a verified service transcript for college, scholarship, and job applications