Charter School Increases Parent Engagement with Volunteer Tracking

NYOS (Not Your Ordinary School) Charter School in Austin, Texas is a unique Pre-Kindergarten through 12th-grade school founded on deep parental and teacher involvement. “We started 26 years ago with 100 students. A group of teachers and parents got together because they wanted to create something different and special for students. Now we’re close to 1,800 students,” says Blanca Martinez, Community Outreach Specialist at NYOS.

NYOS is a year-round school with several breaks throughout the year. “We believe in serving the child and meeting the child where they’re at,” Blanca says. This includes providing extra support for students at all levels, and ‘looping’ teachers so they teach the same students across two grades in elementary school. “The teachers really get to know the child[ren], and they develop a stronger relationship with their class,” Blanca explains.

Blanca, as the Community Outreach Specialist, is responsible for all parent communications and volunteer activities as well as fundraising and social media. She joined NYOS in 2022 and realized that for a school founded by parents with nearly 1,600 students at the time, parent involvement rates were low. Parents were encouraged to volunteer at least 20 hours per school year, but most weren’t engaged.

“When I started, we had maybe 45 volunteers…our numbers were way down after COVID,” she explains. “And before COVID, everyone entered their hours manually by checking in at the front desk, and it was all kept in a notebook.” Blanca knew she needed to find a better way to keep track of parent volunteers, and that’s where Track it Forward comes in.

Increasing Volunteers by 3x in the First Year

“Last year in 2023 we signed up over 300 volunteers,” Blanca says, with about half of them actively logging hours. Just by implementing Track it Forward, NYOS

 was able to triple its number of active volunteers from 45 to more than 300. “This year, in 2024, we have almost 400 [volunteers]...that’s a huge jump.” Blanca believes that Track it Forward’s easy-to-use platform is one of the main reasons they’ve been able to increase parent engagement.

“If anyone asked me, ‘How did you get more volunteers this year than last year?’, I would say having an actual app for them to use like Track it Forward was a big part of it,” she says. “Parents tell us they enjoy using the app because it’s so easy to enter your hours and track [them].”

“If anyone asked me, 'How did you get more volunteers this year than last year?', I would say having an actual app for them to use like Track it Forward was a big part of it.”

In addition to implementing an easy sign-up and time-tracking system, Blanca has created inclusive opportunities for parents to get involved. There are in-school opportunities such as crossing guard duty or lunch monitoring duty, and special events like Picture Day and the Fall Festival. However, not all parents are able to volunteer during the day. “We have a lot of parents that are both working out of the home…so I’ve created a system…for every $10 of in-kind donations, we give them credit for one volunteer hour,” she explains. This way, parents can still contribute. “They’ll bring in cases of water, hand wipes, or classroom supplies…and parents love that as well because they’re able to help out even if they can’t be here physically.”

With the increase in parent volunteers and tracking capability, Blanca has also created a new annual volunteer appreciation event. “I’m able to see the volunteer hours [in Track it Forward] and can see who has the most hours. We’re able to reward those volunteers that put in their 20 hours per year, and recognize those that go above and beyond with over 100 hours,” she says. “[Track it Forward] gives you the opportunity to see what’s going on with all your volunteers, and once you approve your volunteers and create the events,  it pretty much takes care of itself.”

“[Track it Forward] gives you the opportunity to see what’s going on with all your volunteers, and once you approve your volunteers and create the events,  it pretty much takes care of itself.”

Some of the top features for Blanca and NYOS Charter School are the event calendar, email messaging, and reports. The event calendar allows administrators to create recurring events with shifts and designate how many people are needed for each event or shift. “I love the events,” Blanca says. “I love the way they’re organized and easy to create. You can even duplicate or create in bulk to save time.” Administrators can also create event categories for easy filtering on the calendar.

Track it Forward also offers email and text messaging to volunteers. “I like the fact that you can send email messages quickly…anytime I have events coming up I’m able to go in and send an email to…all volunteers. They respond really quickly,” Blanca says. With Track it Forward, administrators can email or text groups of volunteers or invite volunteers directly from the event calendar. There’s also the ability to communicate with subsets of volunteers, such as those who have signed up for a specific event, or who haven’t logged hours in a while.

“The reports are great because I’m able to pull a report for the end of the year,” Blanca adds. “You can duplicate reports as well…there’s a lot of features.” Track it Forward offers a robust reporting tool with pre-existing templates as well as the ability to create custom reports and save your own templates. One of the most important aspects of Track it Forward for Blanca is how easy it is to use. “It’s very user-friendly and convenient,” she says.

“I would highly recommend Track it Forward. It makes a huge difference, especially for schools…it’s worth the price and the service is great!”