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When I graduated from Westfield High School in 2023, I had never heard of the Gatehouse Administration Center. Two years later, it became the place where I reported to work each morning during a six-week summer internship with Fairfax County Public Schools.

As an FCPS student, I rarely considered how many people were needed to operate the school system. I knew about my principal, the superintendent and the School Board, but my first day as an intern revealed a much larger workforce behind the scenes.

Those employees help students reach their classrooms safely, develop relevant curricula and support a positive school experience. Much of that work happens without students ever seeing it.

I spent the summer with the Office of Human Resources, which faces a particularly busy season as employees organize events, prepare guides and manage transitions ahead of the new school year.

Alongside fellow HR interns Katie Breighner, Olivia Zemba and Michael Pannutti, I helped the Talent Acquisition Management team with a job fair at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology. More than 200 prospective teachers attended in hopes of joining FCPS.

I shadowed the licensure table, where candidates learned what they needed to do to become licensed teachers. They ranged from recent graduates with elementary education degrees to a man with a law degree who hoped to teach physical education. Their enthusiasm for serving the public through teaching was encouraging.

Building Skills for the Workplace

The internship program placed 20 interns across 10 departments. Each Thursday, we gathered for professional development covering communication, personal finance, résumé building and networking.

Because I am a third-year journalism student at George Washington University, I also worked with the Office of Communications. With guidance from Social Media Manager Delaina McCormack and Communications Support Specialist Sarah Morris, I launched the @fcpsinterns Instagram account to showcase the interns’ summer work.

Taking the account from an initial proposal and first post to more than 200 followers became the highlight of my internship. It also offered a glimpse of what a digital media career could involve.

Creating content for an organization was new to me. I was accustomed to having complete creative control, but this project required me to be inventive while following FCPS brand standards. McCormack and Morris also taught me about social-media accessibility, representing diversity online and keeping audiences engaged.

Mentors Put Learning First

Learning remained at the center of the program, with mentors and supervisors making interns’ development a priority. My supervisors were Human Resources Business Partner Celeste Jones and Special Programs Manager Beth Boivin.

Jones, who also served as the internship coordinator, made time to hear about the interns’ experiences and answer their questions.

“I was so impressed at how comfortable they were with me because this was a brand new program,” Jones said. “It was a really nice, open relationship because I wasn’t their supervisor, so they could just ask me different things like ‘How do I do this?’ or ‘Can I come here?’”

She was equally impressed by the interns themselves.

“I was just so impressed with our students and how diverse yet unified they are in their quest for learning,” Jones said.

On the second-to-last day of my internship, I attended an event I had anticipated since the program began: the Great Beginnings Summer Institute. The four-day experience welcomes new FCPS educators to the county.

Hayfield Secondary School was filled with activity as new teachers met one another, learned about their positions and collected resources for the coming school year. The excitement throughout the auditorium, hallways, library and cafeteria reminded me why I care so much about education.

The internship showed me the importance of finding purpose in one’s work. Across FCPS, I encountered employees committed to supporting students—even when those students, as I once did, have no idea that this extensive network of people exists.

The program received support from Educate Fairfax and Apple Federal Credit Union.