Who is Mr. Clary?

A look at our additional assistant principal.

Staff Member: Taylor Granier

Position: Social Media Editor

The love and support that has been shown for Mr. Dickinson is truly amazing. As he recovers from his car accident, he leaves some big shoes to fill. To temporarily take on Mr. Dickinson’s job would take someone who already has a connection to at least half of Sandpoint High School’s students, has a good working relationship with current principal Mrs. Crossingham and assistant principal Mrs. Granier, and has the ability to add an extra job to their day. Luckily, Mr. Clary was the person perfect for this opportunity to add positivity and support to our school along with impacting the students.

Although he hasn’t been here long, he already says, “... I have had a positive interaction with over half of the students, which means the more I can get students to smile and show that they are appreciated and that I’m here to help them, the more I feel like they’re gonna want to be at school. So that’s what I think is the most exciting thing, is to feel like I am actually being productive and having positive interactions with students.” He is currently the halftime principal at Southside Elementary while the other half of his job is teaching. To be able to come to SHS and help around here means he gets his teaching job covered while spending his mornings being a principal at Southside and his afternoons as an assistant principal at SHS. It’s a big jump from elementary school to high school, so when I asked him what his first impressions were of high school he admitted, “It’s kind of intimidating. High schoolers are intimidating. There’s a lot of them that are bigger than me and so how do you approach a student who’s super angry about something and thy’re bigger than me… that gets a little scary…”

Clary was a 7th grade English teacher at SMS allowing him to have connections to over half of the students at the high school,“...anytime we have adults working with our discipline, the kids getting in trouble, it’s so much easier when you already have a relationship with them, so I already know them.” Whether you already have a connection with Clary or you are just getting to know him, he wants everyone to understand one thing, “Students need to know that no matter what, even if they’re in trouble, I still like them… Oftentimes when students are in trouble they feel like we don’t like them and that’s not ok. I like all the students, they just made a really bad choice and I want to work with them, so I’m hoping that the students that I have a conversation with know that we’re here to help them make better choices and not make them feel bad about themselves.” As you can tell, Mr. Clary is very excited to be here and we are excited to have him!