Thanks to funding from The OP & WE Edwards Foundation, The Albany Free School offers a comprehensive, yearlong residential internship program that includes valuable learning experiences both in and outside of school. Interns will work full-time in the school with the ongoing support and guidance from members of the teaching staff.

Room & Board
Interns are offered housing in a four bedroom 2nd floor apartment located at the center of the school community. Interns recieve partial board, as breakfast and lunch are served at school everyday. The apartment, less than a block from the school, has a shared kitchen, bathroom, dining room, living room with a wood stove and has the school's farm with chickens and several gardens in the half-acre backyard.

Although at this time we do not offer a stipend, interns will have the chance to earn some money by working in our after school program. From odd jobs in the neighborhood, to local business, and after school programs, The Free School assists interns in discovering different ways to earn extra income and meet their basic financial needs. Interns also have a variety of opportunties to reduce their living expenses by participating in collective resource sharing, for example car collectives and meal collectives.

Roles & Responsibilities
Each year at The Free School is unique and varied depending on the particular group of children, teachers and interns in the building. Therefore during the first part of the year interns will typically take some time to feel things out and spend time with a variety of age groups. However, by the time the school year is really in full swing, interns can usually be found teaching classes, leading activities and helping students with various projects. Though interns may be asked to work with specific age groups, they will not be locked into those roles and throughout the year they will have opportunities to interact and work with kids of various ages.

Interns will be required to come to our weekly staff meetings and once a week a staff member will get together with interns to talk over how things are going at school, answer questions, address concerns, etc. Interns will also participate in a regularly scheduled evening seminar where they can share insights and ideas, as well as discuss books and articles they are reading together.

Opportunties For Personal Growth
At The Free School we pay a great deal of attention to children's emotional selves, and because one of the first "laws" of teaching is that teachers can only take their students as far as they have taken themselves, it is imperative that teachers and interns attend to their own emotional growth as well. To this end, the internship program will include opportunities for interns to expand their awareness of self and others. One such opportunity is our monthly staff circle, which provides a supportive space to share personal experiences, resolve conflicts with each other and work through issues that may be challenging to teachers and interns throughout the course of the school year.

The Free School Community
In addition to experiences at school interns will also have the opportunity be a part of the bustling community of people that live in the neighborhood surrounding the school. The Free School Community is comprised of anywhere from sixty to seventy-five people whose connections to each other in some way lead back to the school. If they choose, interns can learn about and potentially participate in a myriad of exciting community projects that have been launched over the years including: Grand Street Community Arts, The Grease Car Collective, One Skate Media Center, Tamakoce Grafton Land, The Pottery Collective, Ironweed Collective and several others.

The residential internship program is a full school year commitment and generally runs from the last week in August to the second week in June. For more information and to apply please email: internships@albanyfreeschool.com or call (518) 434-3072.

Questions For Prospective Interns To Consider:

1. What interests you about the interning at the Free School?

2. What experience do you have with children such as after school programs, daycare, babysitting, camps or schools?

3. What do you hope to gain from spending a year at the Free School?

4. What are your skills & interests?
(e.g Foreign language, multimedia, art, outdoor education, photography, culturual studies)