School Administrative Internships: Reconciling Learned Knowledge with Applied Practice

Abstract

Internships in school administration provide a unique channel through which theory from course content can be applied within leadership opportunities. Due to their dual status as both current students pursuing advanced degrees and practicing administrators offering assistance in public schools, interns often offer a fresh perspective on various school matters and can serve as valuable partners in furthering the educational purpose of the public school and the university. Through their graduate coursework and field experiences, aided by burgeoning professional relationships in their internship sites, leader‐learners in this scenario have at their disposal a wealth of practical and theoretical knowledge pertaining to the field of education and are able to use such information to their advantage as they learn how to navigate the challenges of school administration. However, these benefits of hands‐on, on‐site learning do not come without tribulations, as these interns must assess the extent to which any potential change that they initiate, particularly with regard to issues of social justice, mesh, or conflict with the interests of existing leaders within the school and district. The current article highlights these matters as told through the eyes of an administrative intern completing a year‐long, full‐time internship in a public school following two semesters of full‐time masters level school administration coursework, and aims to answer the following questions: How can interns effectively apply course content theory, especially issues pertaining to equity, to their leadership practice within a school if the content itself clashes with the school's priorities and programming? How does this dynamic promote or hinder the ability of the intern to lead for social justice?