At the beginning of the 2024-25 school year, we see yet another new face on the administration team at Musselman High School. Mr. Luke Slezak joins the Applemen as the new disciplinary principal.
A small town boy from Johnstown, Pennsylvania, Slezak went to Ferndale Area High School. He played football there, was a part of National Honor Society, Volleyball club and yearbook. He said he was a very active student, receiving a couple of scholar athlete awards as well as playing basketball, soccer and baseball when he was younger.
He enlisted in the United States Navy in the Delayed Entry Program while he was in high school. He waited until after the All Star Football game to ship off to bootcamp in Great Lakes, Illinois.
Slezak served for five years as an Aviation Structural Mechanic in Virginia Beach working on F/A-18s and then transferred to Sicily to work on MH53Es, which is a really large single rotor helicopter. An Aviation Structural Mechanic maintains all main and auxiliary hydraulic power systems, actuating subsystems and landing gear. He later decided to leave the Navy.
“I chose to get out of the Navy to get closer to my family. I knew I still wanted to serve but decided to change what kind of service,” Slezak said “During that time, obesity was on the rise so I decided to be a health and PE teacher.”
After getting a degree in health and physical education from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, he went on to teach Health, P.E. and Drivers Ed for five years in Rappahannock County, Virginia. He switched to Warren County, Virginia, teaching elementary students for four years.
“From there I decided to get a Master’s in Administration and Supervision to one day be an administrator and that day came earlier [than] expected,” Slezak said.
For the past two years he served as an assistant principal at Garland Quarles elementary in Winchester, Virginia. Switching to be a disciplinary principal for Musselman High School.
Slezak said his overall end goal is to end up in the same school as his kids and to continue working at Musselman for the next several years.
“I came to Musselman because I wanted to mow grass in my own backyard,” Slezak said, “ I’ve been teaching out of my own county where I was living for the past ten plus years. They always say the grass is greener on the other side. I had a buddy in high school who said that grass still needs mowed though. But, to me the question is where do you want to mow the grass? Do you want to mow the grass for children in a different city or the children in your local district?”
