In a school with over 1500 students, it’s important that everybody feels seen. Crystal Fluker, one of Skyline’s new SLC Principals, works hard to make students feel that they belong. In this role Fluker gets to know students in Equality and Academic Innovation.
After her last job as Assistant Principal at Clague Middle School, Fluker wanted to try something new. She was interested in working in high school and joined the Skyline administration in August, 2024.
“I started off working with high schoolers when I taught, and I administratively have done elementary [and] middle school, but hadn’t done high school,” says Fluker. “I’m always a fan of trying new things.”
Fluker plays a dynamic role in the leadership team. While also focusing on students and helping them as an SLC Principal, she coordinates testing and senior events like prom with teacher Anne Bezeau.
“So this month, we’ve been working to make sure that prom is going to be a wonderful event for the seniors who choose to attend graduation, making sure that everything is finalized and set up and in order,” says Fluker. “I also work on testing. I had to make sure that all of your test tickets for PSAT were correct. I don’t do any of these things alone. I do them as a team, but as the SLC principal, it’s my job to oversee the team to make sure everything is absolutely.”
Fluker has a long history as an educator. She was an English teacher in Detroit for a few years, and then taught at Pathways High School and as a Behavior Specialist at Clague Middle School before going into administration.
After working at Clague, says Fluker, “Students are definitely more mature here, so I think those are the major differences. And this school is double the size, so it’s really big compared to where I’ve been.”
Fluker is in charge of the 4th Floor Small Learning Communities (SLC). The SLCs help students by providing smaller communities within a larger school, a home base so they can feel like they belong at school. Also it helps educators to get to know more students, making it easier to help them.
“The SLC structure helps me to focus on different students, instead of just the grade level. I get to know students from 9 through 12,” says Fluker. “It helps students to have a principal that they can more readily go to.”
One of her biggest challenges is finding enough time to support students.
“There isn’t always a lot of time to do the best part of the job, which is sitting down, doing interviews with students, or getting to know students, learning about their needs, their dislikes, their likes,” says Fluker. “I don’t have nearly enough time to do that.”
“This is all I’ve ever dreamt of doing, I’ve always learned to work with young people, to mentor them, to teach them, to inspire them, to listen to them when they’re having a bad day.”
