This year, Castilleja switched from its previous Learning Management System (LMS), Schoology, which it had been using for 10 years, to Toddle. This change marks a new era in both how teachers structure their lessons and how students themselves learn.
“Toddle helps support our teaching and learning in a more dynamic system with engineers who work with us,” Head of Middle School Laura Zappas said.
“We were always looking [for a new LMS] because nobody was completely happy with [Schoology],” Director of Technology Jamie Sullivan said. Schoology was purchased in 2019 by a larger company, PowerSchool, which was marketed to larger school districts rather than independent schools.
“Schoology wasn’t able to support us anymore. It was feeling more and more [like a] dated platform. Their engineers had moved on and weren’t giving us real-time support,” Zappas said. Head of Upper School Peter Hatala echoed this sentiment: “Teachers and department leads felt that the tool was driving their practice and what they were able to do, rather than [the other way around].”
In late 2023, Castilleja discovered Toddle and tested it for a year and a half with teaching team pilots and mock classroom simulations before finally deciding to change systems in early 2025. “We spent a year telling [the Toddle team] about what we do and how we do things differently, and they were learning. They wanted to learn,” Sullivan said.
At the time of initial contact, Toddle was a relatively new LMS that primarily focused on International Baccalaureate schools. Castilleja was able to work with them to engineer an entirely new model of Toddle called ‘Toddle 2.0,’ allowing the school to shape the tool specifically for its educational system. “We’re pioneers here. [We’re] fortunate because this is an opportunity for us to build the tool we want,” Sullivan said.
Toddle has fully integrated into Castilleja since August, and its new methods have been met with both excitement and criticism. Castilleja’s administration is confident in the strengths of Toddle, as Hatala said that it is “able to replicate the functionality that Schoology had in a better way.”
“By January, we’re gonna see [big updates]. [We’re] pushing through the hardest [parts of the implementation] right now,” Sullivan said.
Not only has the LMS changed, but the learning and teaching at Castilleja has as well. “[Toddle] forces you to think about your essential questions, understand your learning outcomes and [figure out] how your assessments support that,” Zappas said. “What are my objectives, and then how am I going to get [my students] there? How do I chart growth to know that they are learning what I want them to?”
Along with these new educational methods, Toddle is incorporating artificial intelligence into its website. “It provides students with an AI assistant or tool within each class, and they’re able to do AI chats, which is a functionality we [are still exploring],” Hatala said.
Toddle AI also enables teachers to work more efficiently. “Toddle has four or five different kinds of [AI] tutors built in,” Sullivan said. “Teachers can use it to build a rubric. Their motto [for their AI program] is to give teachers back several hours a week.”
After an administrative-based decision to make the LMS change, educators are prioritizing hearing students in the upcoming months. “We can always think about how we incorporate student voices. That question is really important right now,” Zappas said.
Because the decision was both technical and high-level, academic leadership is looking to take in student feedback now to make Toddle the best it can be. “How do we use the student voice to truly make it a system that works best for all of us?” Zappas asked.
A primary confusion around Toddle was the Castilleja administration’s brief decision to remove the visibility of the cumulative gradebook from the website. It didn’t last for long, with academic leadership quickly deciding to reinstate it onto the platform.
“The goal was to shift how we relate to learning and the grade,” Hatala said. “The intention was not to hide cumulative grades but [rather] to make them not [be] the first thing students see when they log into [LMS]. [Adding back the gradebook’s visibility] wasn’t so much a question of philosophy but a question of the way that the decision felt abrupt for certain members of our community.”
Zappas echoed this message, explaining how the decision to have the sixth grade not have grades in the first semester benefited learning immensely – something administration thinks can help the rest of the school. “We’re in [this] great place [where we’re asking] how we’re using the sixth grade year to understand rubrics, feedback and habits of mind, and [show] students their growth. [So we’re considering how] do we build on from that,” Zappas said.
When asked if cumulative grades could get removed again, Zappas responded, “for sure.” But to get to that decision, Hatala said, “We’ll take student parent input [for] community conversation.”
Moving forward, Toddle has many new features in development, from additional AI tools to bug fixes. “We’re [going to] continue to provide guidance to students and to faculty in the coming weeks and months,” Hatala said. Sullivan added, “While there will be frustrations along the way in different places, we [will] work together and fix those. [We] knew it would be a journey, and it has been.”
