This city public school pioneer is Valley Stream Central High School's new principal

Candace Hugee was named Valley Stream Central High School’s principal earlier this year. She succeeds Joseph Pompilio, who announced his retirement after a 22-year run.

Born in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Hugee — pronounced “huey” — was a product of New York City public schools, where she discovered her leadership skills early on. She devoted her summers to tutoring students, and helped organize a neighborhood summer camp program. At 16 she enrolled at Hunter College, where she earned a degree in media communications and history.

She enjoyed a comfortable career as a sports video editor for ABC, but her untapped passion for youth and education shifted her trajectory to the classroom. She began teaching as a school aide and paraprofessional in a junior high school in the South Bronx, then became a general and special-education teacher in the city public schools.

Hugee earned a master’s in adolescent urban education from Long Island University, and a second master’s, in education leadership, from Brooklyn College.

She also received certificates in diversity, equity and inclusion in the workforce and women’s entrepreneurship from the University of South Florida in Tampa, and Cornell University, respectively. In total, she brings 18 years of educational experience to Valley Stream.

Roughly 12 years ago, under then Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the city’s education department intensified a policy of dividing up or dissolving large, failing schools into smaller ones, to ease overcrowding and promote smaller class sizes. Hugee was among a select group of educators tapped to co-start her own specialized school, in the hope of boosting performance standards. Brooklyn’s Origins High School was created in 2013, and she served as its assistant principal until 2016. The school maintains an enviable academic reputation.

“Starting a school was a lengthy and arduous process,” Hugee said, “but I learned that what really drives learning is a curriculum that offers multiple forms of instruction beyond just the textbook, and tailors its approach to students’ preferred mode of learning.”

Before coming to Central, Hugee helped create the Urban Assembly School for Collaborative Healthcare, a public high school aimed at preparing students for careers in the health care industry, and was its principal for seven years.

“Coming from a school with a career technical education program, I know that Central has many of these programs through BOCES, and I’m committed to expanding these programs to make sure students have post-secondary success,” she said.

“It’s really important that students have skills in trades to be just really knowledgeable citizens, regardless of if they go to college or continue in the vocational setting.”

In whatever academic environment Hugee has served, a pattern of success has emerged. “I always place a tall priority on making the school feel like a safe space,” she said, “where students felt there was always someone they could talk to, where there was no need for physical altercations, and there was an expectation that this was a dignified place.”

She said she shares Pompilio’s vision of school as a “sacred place.”

To Hugee, that’s a place where students are asked to commit to learning, growing and conducting themselves with conscientious care for one another. In turn, the same should be expected of teachers and staff.

She also stressed the importance of an education that is tethered to the reality of what students must face in a modern professional setting, and one that cultivates whole individuals.

“I also want to make sure that the knowledge students acquire at school is useful and pertinent to them, and allows them, and all stakeholders, to have a role in readying our students to take on the world,” she said.

“It’s one thing to have students graduate. It’s quite another to have them be appropriately prepared for the next step in their careers, college-bound or otherwise once they graduate.”

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