At Schoolhouse, there are official and unofficial volunteer teams. Official teams are groups of volunteers who are in direct coordination with the product team to carry out a specific goal that is essential to the success of the organization. We currently have eight official volunteer teams, which you can read about here and on our Volunteer Hub.
All teams without a supervisor from the product team are, by default, unofficial teams. These teams can range from casual (e.g., three volunteers co-creating chemistry materials) to somewhat structured (e.g. 10 volunteers organizing an effort to reach out to homeschool groups across the country).
Unofficial teams can self-organize without any permission or recognition from the leadership at Schoolhouse. However, such teams do have certain limitations:
They must act independently, and cannot claim to do things “on behalf” of schoolhouse.world
Volunteers on unofficial teams do not have formal, outward-facing titles
Work completed for unofficial teams is not eligible for community service hours, unless explicitly stated otherwise by a product team member
Unofficial teams are still beholden to our volunteer guidelines, onboarding (if applicable), & off-boarding process to ensure no abuse of power