A New Era of Teams

February 10, 2023

A New Era of Teams

By Keenan W.

Note: Student responses were recorded from a survey that twelve students responded to. Student responses are thus drawn from a small sample and may not properly represent the opinions, thoughts, and beliefs of NSA’s entire student population.

In August of 2022, NSA changed the structure of Teams. In the months since, a couple of students have cried tears of outrage at the changes. For some, you might be wondering why Teams was changed at all. And, of course, there are probably some of you who are completely unfazed. Nonetheless, there’s a bit that can be said about the situation.

The changes to Teams in August included the separation of the elementary, middle, and high schools. Additionally, individual teams and clubs were “cleaned up” and reorganized so that other students have easy access to different channels and information. Now, students have easy access to channels within their team and aren’t as confused by the many different teams that used to exist.

That being said, some students are still upset with the new Teams changes. Ten NSA full-time high school students said that they all dislike the new changes. Some others may echo their sentiments. One student said,” I don't like the change one bit. The high school, middle school, and elementary school are separated now, and there aren't even separate teams for each grade. The new update just brings sadness, only more separation between students. I feel really bad for the middle and elementary students, as they don't get to join the clubs. What's the point of keeping all of us separated from each other? It's a big downgrade from the previous Teams or even FC.” Another student stated that “I really dislike the new Teams setup because it got rid of the culture of NSA.”

As Mr. Deitch, NSA’s Administrative Director of School Programs states, though, “The reason for the changes to Teams was two-fold.  The first had to do with ease of accessibility.  The responses on the survey were anonymous of course, but I imagine the respondents were largely from the group I refer to as our ‘frequent flyers’ on Teams.  These are the students who spend lots of time engaging socially across the platform and as a result become well-versed and quite adept at navigating and finding exactly what they are looking for at any given time.  I think what these students don't realize is that they are truly the minority of our students here at NSA.  For every one student who always knew where to go to find the specific info/thread they were looking for, there were countless others who consistently reported to our staff that they simply didn't know where to find what they needed when they needed it because of the size and scope of the options.  As it is our desire that Teams would be a useful and well-used social/connection tool for as many students as possible, it simply became apparent that we needed to streamline the platform to make it more inclusive of those who do not have the time/experience of our ‘frequent flyers.’

“The second reason for the changes to Teams involved the separation of the school buildings, which I know was a main area of the respondents' complaints.  The reason for this change was student safety.  If you think about how brick-and-mortar schools are set up, there are none that I am aware of that would allow 4th graders and 12th graders to navigate the same hallways unmonitored for obvious reasons.  As Teams effectively represents our "hallways" and there is no way for our staff to be monitoring them to ensure safe interactions at all times, we simply needed to make a change for safety reasons.  I realize that this led to making it less easy for some students who were already in relationships to keep connected and that not all of these relationships were "unsafe", but I can only assure you (without getting into unsavory or identifying details) that this was not always the case.  If even one older student was inappropriate with a younger one it would be one too many and sadly this occurred more than once.  For that reason, the safety of all of our students needed to take precedence over the convenience of some and we simply had to separate the buildings.” Mr. Deitch also goes further, stating that he knows he speaks “For all of our staff when I say that we care greatly about all of our student's experiences here at NSA and we hate frustrating any of our students, even if it is only a few.  But at the end of the day, we have a God-given responsibility to ensure your safety and we take that quite seriously.  The recent Teams changes were our best attempt at improving the accessibility and safety of the platform without removing too much of what students enjoyed.  We also strived to add new things like "The Courtyard", the "Bye! I Will Miss You!", "University and Life Readiness" and a "General" channel where announcements could be easily found, to hopefully enhance all of our students' Teams experience.”

Mr. Deitch ends off by saying that, “To that end, we welcome your questions, your feedback, and yes, even your frustrations.  Together we will continue to move NSA forward, not just with regards to Teams, but in every aspect so that it continues to be a great and safe place for students around the world.” Even though the new Teams changes might be hard to adapt to, ultimately, they were done with the best intentions and will serve as a benefit to all students long-term.