AdminOwners

Setting Up & Running Your Volunteer Program

Most co-ops run on volunteer labor. HomeschoolGo tracks shift signups against each family’s requirement, so you spend your energy coordinating people, not chasing spreadsheets.

Open Volunteer Policy

How the program works

The volunteer system has three moving parts:

Roles— the kinds of work families can sign up for (Setup Crew, Lunch Monitor, Parking, etc.) and how many credits each is worth.
Shifts— specific instances of a role on a specific date and time, with a capacity limit.
Requirements— how many credits each family needs to earn per term.

Families sign up for shifts through the Volunteer page or directly from the Community Calendar. Shift signups are what HomeschoolGo tracks reliably today — who signed up for which shift, and whether a shift is full, are always accurate and live. Credit totals and the progress bar are also shown on family and admin screens, but treat those as a rough guide rather than a final tally for now (see the note in “Tracking family compliance” below).

Tip: Set up your roles and your per-family requirement before you create individual shifts. The requirement and credit values are the foundation. Shifts inherit them.

Setting requirements

Go to Admin › Volunteer Policy to configure how many credits each family needs to earn for the term.

1Go to Admin › Volunteer Policy.

2Set the Required credits per family for the term. This is the target each family works toward. Their dashboard shows a progress bar against this target, though see the tracking note below before you rely on it for compliance.

3Save. The requirement applies to all families in your co-op for the current term.

Note: The requirement is per family, not per person. A family with five members has the same credit target as one with two. There’s no per-family override today. If you need to adjust for family size or circumstances, set a lower base requirement for everyone, or create an extra shift a family can sign up for to make up the difference.

You can change the requirement mid-term. Families who have already met or exceeded the old target aren’t affected. Their credit totals stay the same; only the target bar shifts.

Roles and credit values

Roles define the kinds of volunteer work available in your co-op and how much each is worth. A two-hour setup shift might be worth 2 credits while a half-day room parent role is worth 4, it’s up to you.

1On the Volunteer Policy page, go to the Roles section.

2Click + Add role. Give it a role name (e.g., “Lunch Monitor”) and a credit value.

3Save. The role is now available to select when you create individual shifts.

Tip: Roles don’t have a duplicate option, but creating a new one only takes a few seconds, useful for a “Head Setup” role worth more credits than the standard setup role.

You can edit a role’s credit value after creation. Shifts already signed up for will keep the credit value they were created with. The change only affects new shifts going forward. Deleting a role also removes any shifts linked to it.

Creating shifts

Shifts are specific instances: “Lunch Monitor on October 3rd, 10:30–11:30 AM, max 3 families.” Create them in Volunteer Policy or directly on the calendar.

From the Volunteer Policy page

Go to the Shifts section and click + Add shift. Select a role, set the date, start and end time, and how many families can sign up. Save. The shift appears immediately on the Volunteer page and the Community Calendar. To edit a shift later, click it from the same Shifts section and update any field you need, or find it on the calendar instead (see below).

From the Community Calendar

Click the + New button in the calendar toolbar, select Volunteer shift, and fill in the same fields. This is faster when you’re already looking at a specific week and want to place shifts visually. Once a shift exists, clicking its pill on the calendar opens the same Edit, Duplicate, and Delete actions described below. You don’t have to go back to the Volunteer Policy page to manage a shift you spot on the calendar.

The + New menu also has a Volunteer setup… option below the divider. It opens the same requirement and role forms described in the next two sections, so you can adjust your policy without leaving the calendar.

Duplicating a shift

The fastest way to set up recurring shifts. Click Duplicate on any existing shift. A pre-filled form opens with the same role, time, and capacity. Change the date (and anything else that differs) and save. Repeat for each co-op day.

Editing a shift

Click Edit on any existing shift to change its date, time, role, or capacity. Families already signed up are not affected. Their signup stays in place. Use this when a shift needs to move to a different time or when you want to expand capacity after a slot fills.

Tip: Set up all your shifts for the term at the start of the term, not week by week. Families plan their schedules early. Shifts that appear late get fewer signups.

Note: Shifts are visible to all members as soon as you save them. There’s no draft or private state. If you want a shift to stay quiet until you’re ready to promote it, plan to save it and send your announcement around the same time.

Tracking family compliance

Admin › Reports has a Volunteer credits card meant to total each family’s credits earned this term against the requirement. Right now there’s no step anywhere in the app that posts a credit to a family’s total, so don’t rely on this card, the dashboard progress bar, or a family’s “credit history” to reflect who’s actually met their requirement — treat them as not yet populated rather than as an accurate count.

For an accurate picture today, use shift signups directly: the Volunteer Policy page lists each shift with a fill status badge and the names of everyone signed up, which is the reliable record of who committed to what.

Tip: Check the shift signup lists mid-term, not just at the end. Families who haven’t signed up for anything yet still have time to fix that if you flag it early.

Note: The Reports page doesn’t have a dedicated CSV export for volunteer signups, but the co-op backup ZIP under Admin › Settings › Data includes a full raw export of every family’s shift signups.

Off-schedule contributions

Not every volunteer contribution fits a scheduled shift. A family might drop off supplies, help coordinate off-site, or pitch in some other way you want to recognize. There isn’t a way for an admin to hand-add a credit directly to a family’s total. The closest option is to create a role and a shift for it (for example, a “Supply donation” role) and ask the family to sign up for it themselves, so you at least have a record of the contribution on their signup list — keep in mind that, per the note above, the credit value attached to it isn’t currently reflected anywhere either.

Tip: If off-schedule contributions come up often at your co-op, use the chat bubble on any page to tell us. It’s a good signal that a dedicated manual-credit tool is worth building.

What families see

Families see the volunteer program in two places:

Dashboard progress bar

Their main dashboard shows a credit progress bar, earned vs. required, keeping the requirement visible without families having to hunt for it. As noted under “Tracking family compliance” above, this bar isn’t currently a reliable earned-credit count — expect it to read low or empty even for families who’ve signed up for shifts.

Volunteer page

The Volunteer page (sidebar) shows the same progress bar at the top, plus a View credit history disclosure. Below that, available shifts are listed by date and role, each showing a “filled/capacity” count and spots remaining, with a “Shift full” label once it reaches capacity. Families click Sign Up to claim a shift. Signups are checked on the server too, so a full shift can’t be joined through a stale page. Their upcoming and past shift signups are listed below.

Once someone signs up, HomeschoolGo sends a reminder email, plus a push notification if they have the app, about a week before the shift. A family can turn these off from the Volunteer shift reminders row in My Profile’s Communication preferences card, without affecting their other email settings.

Community Calendar

Volunteer shifts appear as pills on the Community Calendar. A family can click any shift pill to see the role and available spots and sign up directly, without going to the Volunteer page.

Tip: Families can cancel their own shift signup from the Volunteer page using the Cancel signup button. The spot opens immediately for someone else. Encourage families to cancel as early as possible if they can’t make a shift.

Common questions

Can I set different requirements for different families?

Not directly. The requirement is co-op-wide. For families who need an exception (medical reasons, remote members, etc.), set a lower base requirement for everyone rather than trying to change it per family.

A family signed up for a shift but didn’t show. Do I need to remove the credit?

No — there isn’t currently a way to remove or adjust an individual family’s credit total, and as covered above, credit totals aren’t reliably tracked yet regardless. The shift’s signup list is what to go by if you need to follow up on a no-show. If this comes up often, let us know through the chat bubble on any page.

Can I carry unused credits from one term to the next?

No. Credits are term-specific and don’t roll over automatically. If you want to recognize families who exceeded the requirement last term, the most direct option is a shift in the new term they can sign up for.

A shift filled up instantly. Can I increase capacity after the fact?

Yes. Click Edit on the shift in Admin › Volunteer Policy, update the capacity, and save. Families already signed up aren’t affected. The new spots open immediately.

A returning family says they can’t sign up for a shift.

Two things to check. First, on Admin › Terms & Schedule, confirm the shift’s term shows an Opened badge — a term you just created or copied starts closed, and shifts in a closed term aren’t visible to families at all. Second, if the term is open, a returning family has to confirm its information for that term before it can take on a new-term commitment like a shift. If they haven’t gotten to that yet, signing up sends them to the Confirm your information page instead. There’s no admin view of who has completed that step; ask the family to log in and check.

Still have a question? Head back to the Help & Support page or reach out to your co-op admin directly from the dashboard.