Castilleja announced Monday that it had hired longtime girls’ school teacher Peter Hatala as its new senior high school principal. He was chosen because of his “unique insights and positive energy,” according to a school press release.
Hatala has been interested in education for years and earned a master’s degree in education from Columbia University, with a particular focus on “resolving the tension between academic rigor and student well-being.”
He began his teaching career at the Berkshire School, a boarding school in Massachusetts, where he worked as a learning specialist, and then spent ten years as a history teacher, department head, and director of curriculum and innovation at the Emma Willard School, a New York City girls’ school.
Most recently, Hatala was director of studies at the Webb Schools in Claremont, California.
According to a statement from Castilleja, he also trained prospective teachers in Bard College’s Master of Arts in Teaching program.
In recent years, Hatala has also written several educational articles on the topics of Advanced Placement testing, more creative teaching methods, and barriers to learning.
“I am thrilled to join the remarkable Castilleja community as senior high school principal and to participate in the important work of developing girls to be confident thinkers and compassionate leaders,” Hatala wrote in a statement.
Hatala, who was unanimously elected to the position, officially began his job this summer, a year before new principal Betty Noel-Pierre joins Castilleja as part of an entirely new leadership team in the summer of 2025. Previous principal Nanci Kauffman resigned in September 2023 after a 13-year tenure and was replaced by assistant principal Kathy Layendecker as interim principal.
This year, Julia Russell Eells, former principal of University High School in San Francisco, has taken on the role of interim principal until Noel-Pierre takes office.
“We know that his extensive experience in all-girls education will make him an exemplary head of the senior school,” Eells wrote in a statement.
