A look at the new Upper School Principal, Toby Castle
In spring of 2025, Minnehaha Academy announced that the current upper school principal, Mike DiNardo, would be resigning to take a teaching position. The search began, and in a few short months they announced they had hired a new principal from the other side of the world; Toby Castle.
Growing up in Sydney, Australia, Toby Castle attended primary school at his local public school, then a Christian private school in high school.
Castle was a very active kid. In his free time, he would play many sports, some of which including rugby and basketball.
Later in his life, Castle attended the University of Sydney, one of the eight ‘sandstones’, “our version of the Ivy League schools,” said Castle.
Initially, he enrolled to earn a bachelor of economics, later he switched to a bachelor of education and soon after became a teacher at the age of twenty-one. Castle started his teaching career in 2007 as a Physical Education teacher for grade kindergarten-12th grade.
“I would go from teaching third graders to catch and throw, to my next class was with 12th graders, teaching anatomy and physiology,” said Castle.
After seven years, he moved to Los Angeles, California to attend Fuller Seminary in Pasadena.
“It’s close to Cal Tech and JPL, where they create all the rockets for NASA,” said Castle.
Castle is also the author of the book called ‘Permission to Grieve’ published in 2024. Permission to Grieve was written to help people to understand the role of grief in life.
“I lift up the idea of lament, which we find in Scripture,” said Castle, “Yelling at God what we really think because I think he can handle it”.
Castle believes fully in Jesus Christ and that really affects his daily life and how he treats the people around him.
“The love that God has shown me in the death and resurrection of Jesus, that we then are meant to hold and engage with other people in a similar way,” said Castle.
Toby Castle had worked in two other schools christian schools back in Australia, there was something about working in a school that was Christian that stood out to him.
“I could bring my whole self, because they were Christian schools, I could talk about my faith,” said Castle.
Although Castle has worked in many schools and in the education field for a long time but never had the title of principal. The other schools he had worked at had the role of ‘Associate head’ which is similar to a principal but over a bigger group; pre-K through 12th grade.
Toby Castle wants to help Minnehaha be excellent.
“Minnehaha advertises itself as the best Christian school in the state, which is great,” said Castle, “But why can’t we be the best private school?”.
A “Christian School pursues excellence”, one of the things many Christian schools want to achieve. Castle has a mindset that sets him apart from other people, He has not only experienced education on a state level but rather a global level.
“Blake, Breck, why can’t we be better? They’re not Christian schools, but can we be better than them?” said Castle, “Well, we’re going to beat them in volleyball, But on all fronts can we be the best?
Toby Castle is loving his new start at minnehaha academy.
“Watching kids learn, and obviously, going to athletic games,” said Castle when asked about his favorite parts of his journey so far.