Crystal Fluker is a mother and wife. And she recently added the title of Clague principal. What she brings to Clague is not only her experience in the classroom and being an assistant principal throughout the district, but being the mom of three boys.
Of her three children, Christopher and Charles are twins and they are at Clague too. Her oldest son, Sam who is a ninth grader, currently attends Huron High School, he is also on the basketball team and runs track.
Fluker has been welcomed back by staff and students into her leading role.
She is very much capable of handling any situation with students.
“First, I try to think about how I want my three boys to be handled, and if it is a lesson, I want them to learn from I take that into consideration,” Fluker said. “Then I deal with the student. I tried to have empathy, considering that most of our students are between 12 and 14 years old, so I try to help them learn a lesson and not suspend them if possible.
Fluker will not put up with unkind behavior.
She is a familiar face to Clague. She did indeed leave the Cougars a few years ago when she was “voluntold” to help at other schools. Initially, it was supposed to be just for a little amount of time, and it wound up being much longer. So when the position to be the principal came available, she jumped on the opportunity.
Fluker was a Carpenter Elementary for a year as the interim principal, and then she went to Skyline as what’s called the SLC principal, the principal of over half of the school and a small learning community.
Fluker said there are no immediate changes she is making at Clague.
“When you come in new, you really don’t want to come to the door changing a lot,” Fluker said. “You want to see what’s working, and of course things that aren’t working well or working at all, we change those things so the school community can be successful, but things that might be 50/50, we want to see how we can kind of slowly roll into that.”
Fluker said she has a heart to work with kids.
“Some things the kids can experience and expect from me [is] consistency,” she said. “I really love kids”.
She likes to have lots of fun, but however does not like foolishness, so she will take care of business when it’s business time, so the kids and her can have fun and enjoy moments.
“As a person, I like to read,” Fluker said. “I’m very inquisitive. I like to have a good time. I love to laugh. I think those things all come into play as a principal, because I really like to have a good time but I like things to be orderly. I like structured fun.”
When Fluker was five-years-old, she was determined to become a teacher. Fluker was one of those kids who played teacher with her friends, and of course she was always the teacher, not the student — her dream was always to become an educator.
