Christian School Tracks High School Community Service Hours

North Cobb Christian School is a K-12 Christian School located in Georgia. It has a robust community service program in place for upper school students rooted in five core values: love, respect, responsibility, integrity, and service.

Robert Gnann is the Director of Student Life at North Cobb Christian and oversees the upper school community service program. “A large part of my job centers around the spiritual formation of students,” he says. “Part of my role is tying together all things community service related, which tie back to the core values and the idea of spiritual formation.”

At North Cobb Christian School, freshmen and sophomores are required to complete 10 hours of service per year, and juniors and seniors must complete 20 hours of service per year. Service hours must be community-facing. “We’re surrounded by non-profits that are always looking for volunteers. [Students can also participate] in mission trips and church,” Robert shares. In addition to the annual grade-level community service hour requirement, some students go above and beyond by participating in service clubs and programs. North Cobb Christian School has service clubs such as National Honor Society and Beta Club in addition to a lower-school mentorship program called the Timothy Program and Eagle Ambassadors.

It’s important for North Cobb Christian to keep track of these student community service hours, not only for graduation requirements but for student service awards as well. The Second Mile Award is given to students who complete more than 150 community service hours and the I’m Third Award is for those who complete over 300 community service hours. 

“We also have an award in honor of a student, called the Kathleen Sutz Award. This is given to the student with the highest amount of community service hours at the time of graduation,” Robert explains. “Kathleen Sutz was a remarkable servant leader, and she made it her mission to hit 1,000 hours of community service. In an effort to continue to honor her, that is the highest award we give out for students with the most amount of hours.”

Top Features for Tracking Community Service Hours for Students

Robert needs to keep track of hundreds of students working toward multiple goals, approve their submissions with reflections, and create regular reports. “In the past, we tried everything from paper forms to Google Forms, and we had spreadsheets. But as we’ve grown…closer to 500 students, that becomes difficult to manage,” he explains. He needed a solution that would simplify the service hours tracking and reporting process.

“Track it Forward does such a good job of helping keep everything organized. It was worth the decision to partner with Track it Forward.”

The top Track it Forward features Robert uses to track community service hours include milestones, approvals, and reports. The milestones feature allows schools to assign different requirements to students based on any factor, such as grade level or club participation. When students log into their account, they can easily check their progress toward these milestones and see a total of pending and approved hours. School administrators can view aggregate totals of students’ progress on milestones from the dashboard. In addition, milestones can be used to filter and report on student progress.

Approvals are essential for keeping track of student community service hours. Schools choose to require additional verifications for service hours that are visible in the approval queue. These include a signature, photo upload, GPS location, supervisor email receipt, or a reflection. At North Cobb Christian School, the service program requires a reflection to be submitted. “We ask, ‘what [service] did you do, and how were you able to see the impact of that?” Robert says.

Administrators can delegate approvals to other admins with approver access. For example, students who are a part of the National Honor Society automatically have their NHS hours sent to the club coordinator for approval at North Cobb Christian School.

In addition to tracking student service hours, accurate reporting is essential for progress updates and confirming graduation requirements. Track it Forward offers a report building feature that allows admins to build custom reports. “The reports have been the most helpful for me on the administrator side,” Robert says. “It’s been super helpful when I need to personally connect with students if they’re behind on their hours.” This check-in is important because the school’s community service guidelines recommend half of student hours be completed by December.

"It's so easy to run the report and get exactly what I need."

Robert Gnann serves as a dedicated spiritual leader for students at North Cobb Christian School, where community service is not just a requirement but a core value. Robert has been able to manage service hours for a growing high school population with the help of Track it Forward.

Track it Forward offers school-friendly features like milestones tracking, approvals, and custom reports that streamline the community service hours tracking process. By providing a clear and easy-to-use interface, Track it Forward helps Robert ensure students remain engaged, accountable, and focused on the true impact of their service.

“The students find [Track it Forward] easy to use, I find it easy to use, and it’s been a huge blessing to us.”

If your school struggles with tracking high school community service hours with paper forms and spreadsheets, it might be time to look for a more efficient solution. Learn more about how Track it Forward can work for your school community service program here.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ):

How do high school students log volunteer hours?
Students can log volunteer hours with the mobile app or online using the Track it Forward platform.

How to show proof of community service hours?
Schools can choose to verify community service hours with advanced verifications such as signatures and emails or written reflections.

How do you keep track of service hours?
Schools and students can keep track of service hours with Track it Forward. Track it Forward helps students track progress toward requirements and verify their service hours.