Henry T. Eubank
Staff WRITER

Excellency and proficiency are two words used to describe Ben Flunker by his co-administrators, who will be the interim assistant principal for the senior class while Dr. Mayes is out on maternity leave. Being an assistant principal is a prominent position at any high school. At a school where excellency is not only an expectation, but a requirement, the administration team feels they made a fine choice to replace Dr. Mayes while she is on maternity leave.
“Regardless of the circumstance, it’s a challenge for students in the classroom because it just is. It causes that interruption, that consistency and continuity that is beneficial to students and their learning is interrupted,” Principal Dr. Tim McCarthy said. “Part of what we look for when we’re looking for that sub is who can fill in that spot and do the best job at minimizing that disruption.”
Flunker has been the progress monitoring coach at Central for three years now. This requires him to be very informed on the progress students have been making throughout their years at Central. This position has given him a good idea of what the students needs are before he actually interacts with them, making his transition much easier.
“I think Mr. Flunker is going to be a great person in that role,” McCarthy said. McCarthy made it very clear that he has full confidence in Mr. Flunker and his ability to carry out Dr. Mayes duties while she is finishing her maternity leave.
Flunker has his masters in administration, which is preferred in the Parkway District.
“It is certainly one of the things that made him qualified for the position and an appealing candidate,” McCarthy said. Flunker becoming the interim replacement for Dr. Mayes also minimized the disruption in other parts of the building, due to his familiarity and experience at Central High. When asked about the prospect of an outside hire McCarthy said that the school could have done that, but did not see any reason to do that because of how qualified and familiar Flunker already was with the job.
“A big part of the grade level administrators do is monitor the progress of their students academically… With his experience as progress monitoring coach he is familiar with those systems. So we kinda hit the ground running with him,” McCarthy said.
Flunker has also interned with two other principals in Parkway, and has been the administrator at Parkway North’s summer school program.
Mayes and Flunker are also very familiar with each other and had lots of conversations leading up to her maternity leave, which has helped with the transition. They also are involved in many of the same committees within the building.
“It has been an easy transition, she helped me a lot before she left,” Flunker said.
“The specific initiatives and activities that he was involved in, Dr. Mayes was also involved in,” McCarthy said.
Flunker is excited and optimistic about the position he will be taking on, saying he is looking forward to working with seniors. He will also taken on a much larger workload in the coming months. While being the interim principal, he will also be continuing his duties as the progress monitoring coach.
“I have these two jobs, four committees to run, four programs to run. I’m running parent teacher conferences which she does,” Flunker said.
Time management has been an early challenge for Flunker because of his new load of responsibilities. Flunker stated that one of his and other administrators biggest jobs is managing their time correctly so that they can do their best work possible.
“It has been an easy transition, she helped me a lot before she left,” Flunker said.
Student confidence is very high in Mr. Flunker as an interim assistant principal.
“I mean we loves Mayes, but we rock with Flunk too,” senior Gerald Lenoir said.
Even though his success in this temporary role is not guaranteed, he has the full support of his fellow administrators, teachers, and most importantly, the students he will be overseeing.