If your school requires volunteer hours — co-op duty, event help, classroom support — TeachHero can run the whole loop: families sign themselves up, attendance turns sign-ups into completed hours, and timesheets show who's on track. Set it up once per term; after that it mostly runs itself.
Note: Volunteer management is included in every plan. See Plans & Pricing.
Step 1: Create and schedule your activities
- Under Volunteers → Schedule, click New activity.
- Pick the Term, choose an activity in the Project field (or create one on the spot with +), and set its start and end dates.
- Decide how people commit:
- Simple spots — enter Volunteers needed / Spots available and Hours earned per volunteer. Good for "we need 5 helpers for the fundraiser".
- Shifts — check Use shifts to assign volunteers and add time slots (they can repeat weekly or monthly). Good for recurring duty like lunch supervision; hours are credited from each shift's length.
Deep dive: Activities and Shifts
Step 2: Publish all three layers
Families can only sign up for what's published, and there are three switches: the term must be published, the scheduled activity must be published (select rows on the Schedule page → Publish selected), and each shift must be published too. A green check means live; a gray slash means draft.
Once live, families sign up in the parent portal under Volunteer → Sign up — self sign-ups are marked Confirmed automatically. You can also assign people directly, with an optional RSVP request.
Deep dive: Volunteers
Step 3: Set the hours requirement — automatically
A timesheet tracks one family's (or one person's) hours for the term against a required total. Don't create them by hand:
- Go to Volunteers → Timesheets → Automation → Add automation.
- Trigger: Student registers for schedule (that is, registers for the term).
- Action: Create new timesheet — set Track by (Family is right for most co-ops: everyone's hours pool together) and the Required hours.
- Enable the rule's toggle. It only fires for future registrations, so use the rule's Run automation action once to cover families who already enrolled.
Deep dive: Timesheets
Step 4: Track attendance so hours count
Hours count as completed when a sign-up is marked Present, Tardy, or Excused — so someone needs to take roll:
- Go to Volunteers → Attendance (the Today tab is your friend).
- Click Edit on each row and set the status — or open the activity and use the Change status bulk action.
For hours worked outside any scheduled activity (at-home prep, weekend errands), open the timesheet and use Log time.
Step 5: Keep an eye on progress
Each timesheet shows Required, Scheduled, and Completed at a glance — and families see the same numbers in their portal, which does most of your reminding for you. Shift coverage lives at Volunteers → Shifts ("2 of 5 — 3 more needed").
Next term: copy, don't rebuild
- Copy the volunteer calendar: select activities on Schedule → Copy activities (copies arrive as drafts — publish when ready).
- Copy the timesheets: select them on Timesheets → Copy timesheets; hours start fresh, required totals carry over.