“It’ll be hard to find someone to fill her shoes,” was a frequently heard phrase in 2019 when Westfield Academy and Central School Secondary Principal Ivana Hite announced her retirement, after 32 years of service with the district.

Nevertheless, Corey Markham, who has a professional certificate as a School Building Leader, filled the principal’s position smoothly and efficiently, and, last month, was approved for a tenured position in the Secondary Principal Tenure Area, effective, Oct. 16.

When Hite announced that she would be retiring on Sept. 30, 2019, then Superintendent David Davison said, “The high school principal position is the most challenging of any position in the district.’ By all indications, Markham has met that challenge well.

The search for a new principal began immediately after Hite announced her upcoming retirement. Markham, who was selected to assume the position of secondary principal, joined the administrative team of WACS in October 2019. He is a graduate of St. Bonaventure University and came to WACS with more than 17 years of teacher-leader experience, including academic and athletic coaching.

Markham said his first four years as secondary principal have had memorable moments, including the students’ performances and athletic accomplishments. “Starting with our rendition of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol to last year’s West Side Story, our students and staff do an outstanding job with our musical performances,” he said.

“Our athletic program has been extremely successful,” he said. “Our boys and girls Soccer teams reached Sectionals right as I started back in 2019. The boys basketball team won a sectional championship in 2022.”

Markham emphasized how winning sectional titles in sports creates excitement in the community. “Our girls softball team’s back-to-back Sectional Championships were incredible,” he said. “Each team’s journey to win a Section title and perhaps move forward to capture a State Championship creates a positive atmosphere within our community.”

Markham said he particularly appreciates being able to celebrate the students’ accomplishments. “Our Honor Nights and Commencement Ceremonies over the past four years . . . Our students have overcome a lot and celebrating their academic successes is quite enjoyable,” he said.

Markham said the COVID pandemic was and will be his greatest challenge. “We are still recovering from the Pandemic, and this will take some time,” he said. “We will need to ensure that we have the adequate resources and professional development to address our students’ social emotional health. We will need to continue to adjust our instruction to reflect any gaps that our students have.”

Markham feels that the staff and students at Westfield helped him to fit in and become an integral part of the WACS community. ‘We have a veteran staff that we have been adding outstanding new staff too. Connecting, engaging, and inspiring our students to do their very best each and every day starts with that relationship that our staff has with our students,’ he said.

Markham said that, from the beginning, he realized the importance of the staff-student relationship and that it must be nurtured. ‘We need to continue to foster and build upon that relationship in order for Westfield to be successful,’ he said.

As Markham moves into his tenured position as secondary school principal, he has plans for offering WACS students more opportunities to prepare them for the challenges they will face. ‘We need to continue to grow our academic programming along with creating multiple opportunities through athletics and extracurricular programs to engage our students,’ he said. ‘I am very excited about our partnership with WOZ Education and the STEM opportunities we are now offering our students.’

‘Regardless of if it is college, the military or the workforce, our students need to leave Westfield with the ability and skills to collaborate with others to critically think and develop creative solutions to life’s future challenges,’ he said.

Filling the shoes of a 32-year veteran at WACS, facing the challenges of the pandemic, seeing outstanding student accomplishments and working with an outstanding staff have led Markham to conclude: ‘I am very much enjoying my time at Westfield!