The Effect of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Internship Experiences of Principal Candidates in Texas

This paper investigated principal interns’ leadership work during the COVID-19 pandemic in Texas. We used data from one-on-one semistructured interviews to document the experiences of 21 principal candidates in spring 2021 through spring 2022. Participants’ leadership work changed in four ways during the pandemic: striving, intensifying, expanding, and limiting. We also found that the changes that participants reported varied across the three semesters we studied. Our findings highlight how the pandemic, in some cases, the pandemic created new opportunities for interns, while in other cases, it led to an intensification or limiting of work that narrowed interns’ leadership work.