Clark McCready, 29, assistant principal at West Perry High School, uses his experience coming up through the Hollidaysburg Area School District to help students who may be struggling — like he admits he did — in school. Courtesy photo

In Clark McCready’s own words, he “really struggled in high school, junior high, middle school, all of it,” was “never really an upper level student” and felt that his parents were always meeting with his teachers — which is why, at only 29, he is already working to uplift kids like himself through his role as assistant principal at West Perry High School.

“I just lacked confidence,” McCready said. “School did not come easy for me and I really just wasn’t engaged.”

But if you asked his Hollidaysburg High School football coach John Barton, who watched McCready come up through Hollidaysburg, he would tell you that he’s “not surprised at all about where he is right now.”

“He was a kid, but the ability was always there,” Barton said. “It took having a purpose for it to come into focus for him to thrive and when he figured it out he really figured it out.”

What McCready figured out was that he wanted to be a high school football coach — like Barton.

The older he got, McCready said, the more he thought of football as his “ticket,” although he knew that meant he would also need to become a teacher. Barton himself taught English.

So, with the help of his football coaches, McCready was able to get a full scholarship to Delaware State University, where he played Division I-AA football.

“That was where I found the confidence in myself,” McCready said. “I didn’t really have any other identity other than just football and sports until I started finding a lot of enjoyment out of teaching and working with kids.”

McCready’s first job was as the head counselor at the Blair Regional YMCA for its camp for fourth to sixth graders. He said he would get up at 5 a.m. to “hang out with all the kids” and be a part of their summer vacation, which often makes up “some of the best memories of their lives.”

“I realized that I had a real gift for motivating kids and all that — seeing them become the best version of themselves through that summer and finding confidence,” McCready said.

It was also at the YMCA that McCready first interacted with Hollidaysburg’s current athletic director and head football coach Homer DeLattre.

“He had a huge impact on them,” DeLattre said. “He’s a gifted mentor for young men and women.”

After graduating from Delaware State, McCready went to Drexel University for graduate school and to earn his administration certificate.

“I just got it all done early in my career which led me to where I’m at now, and taking the job on at 29,” McCready said.

He worked in Hollidaysburg while searching for a job, coached for two years under Delattre and was even a long-term substitute teacher for the district before he moved to Harrisburg to teach at Central Dauphin School District.

“He was well-respected by everyone he worked with,” DeLattre said. “He was always very impressive, very mature beyond his years. It was very unfortunate for us to lose him, he was a good coach and a good teacher.”

McCready originally worked for the Central Dauphin School District, one of the biggest districts in the state. He moved from the middle school to the high school, where he “made a lot of connections” and “took on a lot of leadership roles early on.” It was through those connections that he saw an opportunity opening up in the West Perry School District at the high school, where one of his former assistant principals, Chris Kaisan, had taken a job as lead principal.

“When we hired Clark to be an English teacher at Central Dauphin East High School, it was evident that he cared deeply about kids and would do all it takes to help students,” Kaisan said. “Currently, as an assistant principal at West Perry High School, Clark is using his passion to help students struggling academically, behaviorally and emotionally. He does an excellent job supporting teachers.”

As West Perry’s assistant principal, McCready works with the ninth and 10th graders — about half of the high school’s 650 students. Kaisan is the administrator for the building’s 11th and 12th graders.

McCready said that what he loves about being in administration is that he is able to help more kids and that he loves “building relationships with my kids, the good kids, the kids that struggle behaviorally, academically, whatever.”

“I was head girls track coach, I was a head JV football coach, and then at the same time, I was doing everything in my teaching,” McCready said. “I was also helping out with our (Positive Behavior Intervention Systems) team, which works with at-risk children in our school and interventions to get them up to standard.”

McCready said that the middle school where he had worked was seeing a lot of improvement when he was leading its program.

“I have had some good turnarounds,” McCready said. “I’ve had some really difficult kids, some really, really tough at-risk kids from some difficult situations persevere through some tough times. And I’m happy that I was even a small part of that, whatever that may be.”

Each student that McCready has worked with has shown some level of progress, Kaisan said, adding that he is a “natural with students” and that he “understands them.”

“He connects with kids who are struggling,” Kaisan said. “Clark has a keen ability to implement consequences while showing grace. … The kids know he cares. He meets them halfway and they make the effort to do the same.”

While McCready considers his age an advantage now, he admitted he was nervous when he first took on the job.

“I feel like I make the joke sometimes when I talk to people, that I’m closer in age to our high school kids who are juniors and seniors than I am to most of the staff members,” McCready said. “But I think that offers me an advantage when working with them and trying to find the right support and interventions for them, to get to where they need to be.”

Kaisan echoed this, saying that McCready’s age allows him to be “the big brother most of these kids might not have.”

“He’s a great role model,” Kaisan said. “Clark understands the social and emotional issues the students deal with because he is close to their age.”

Now that McCready has decidedly “figured things out,” there are two things that he would tell kids that are struggling like he once did. The first is “be yourself.”

“The other thing I will say is, if you’re struggling in school, advocate for yourself and seek help from your teachers,” McCready said. “A lot of kids won’t seek help and they’ll let the bad grades or the bad behavior label them or give them a title. They feel like they have to live up to it, then it just becomes a downward spiral. I’m a firm believer in that 100% of the kids want to do better — the struggling kids, they want to do better.”