Daniel Zaccaro
School psychologist. Programmer. Founder of Helix Forms LLC.
14 years in schools
I'm a practicing school psychologist in Iowa with 14 years of experience. My day-to-day spans special education evaluations, IEP meetings, behavior observations, and building data visualizers for the districts I work with.
That on-the-ground experience is the engine behind everything I build at Helix Forms. I've seen — too many times — what happens when education tools are designed by people who've never run an evaluation, never sat through an IEP meeting, never had to triage 40 behavior observations before a deadline. The result is software that's technically functional but practically frustrating: too many clicks, the wrong data fields, charts that don't show the things teachers actually need to see.
Conducting an assessment.
Why I started building tools
I have a background in computer programming and graphic design, which gives me a unique advantage: I understand the types of data that educators need, and have the technical craft to make it a reality. I started building spreadsheets and templates to solve my own problems — automating the parts of evaluations and progress monitoring that ate up hours of my week.
What surprised me was how quickly other educators started asking for them. Teachers, school psychologists, instructional coaches, ABA therapists — people who recognized that someone had finally built tools shaped by the work itself, instead of being driven my a programmer's guess at what was needed. That response is what told me to keep going.
Why "Helix Forms"
The name comes from the idea that DNA is made of small pieces that come together to build something wonderful — life. I try to take the core principles of design and data analysis and weave them into tools that are both useful and a pleasure to use.
My passion is eliminating busy work that a computer could be doing — things like looking up scores in norm tables, tallying behavior patterns, formatting the same chart for the hundredth time. The principles are simple: no personal data collection, no ads, no accounts you didn't ask for. And when a school district needs a custom version of a resource to fit their exact workflow, I can build it for them.
The apps I'm building
Behavior Observer came directly from my own work. I do behavior observations constantly during special education evaluations, and analyzing the results afterward used to consume way too much time. I built Behavior Observer so I could capture data in the moment and have instant reports at my fingertips. It's been a game changer for my own practice, and now it's available for any educator or clinician who needs the same efficiency.
Clef Stories grew out of teaching my own kids piano. When I noticed my children weren't recognizing notes fast enough, I wanted a fun, targeted way for them to practice. The result is an app that turns any short story into a printable note-naming worksheet. They liked the worksheets, and having an unlimited supply at my fingertips made our practice routines much more meaningful.
Outside of school
I live in Dubuque, Iowa. My rock band, Brushfire Bandits, has really taken off over the last few years. Outside of music, I'm into gardening, archery, pool, and riding my electric unicycle.
Get in touch
Have a question, idea, or feature request? Send a message or email HelixForms@gmail.com.