A week ago, Mrs. Sarah Castaneda, Director of Secondary Education, announced in an email to parents that Mr. Sean Begley, Assistant Principal, would be taking former principal, Mr. Robin Tobias’s position as principal of the high school for the remainder of the school year.

A special school board meeting was conducted on Wednesday, April 29 to address Mr. Tobias’s letter of resignation, as Mr. Tobias was placed on administrative leave last week.

Mr. Tobias’s resignation was the main topic for discussion, and the resignation was granted by the Board.

As the 2014-2015 school year comes to a close, Mr. Begley’s new position has the administration focusing on the future.

Mr. Begley graduated from Indiana State University in 2002, worked as a Deputy G3 of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and has served as Freshmen Center Associate and Assistant Principal at Lake Central since 2002.

“Mr. Begley will be in charge, and our goal right now is to get [the students] through. Our number-one priority always is taking care of all of the students that are here,” Mr. Al Gandolfi, Assistant Superintendent, said. “Let’s get to the Radisson, and congratulate this class of graduates and then move forward after that. Mr. Begley will do a great job [as will] all the other AP’s [assistant principals]. Mrs. Castaneda and I are helping out as much as we can.”

The administration hopes that the personnel change will bring the same positive energy to the school system that Mr. Tobias did.

“The characteristics of our former principal that benefitted students and helped move our school forward we’ll look for in the next principal,” Dr. Lawrence Veracco, Superintendent, said. “It’s important that we find all those good characteristics because many of the aspects of why our school has been functioning in the last three years have been very positive. So that process will get started here in the near future, but right now we have to finish our testing and wrap up this school year, button it up and then look to the future. There’s a lot of positives going on here, and we need to keep the momentum going, and we believe we will get quality candidates to fill that role.”

A 1994 graduate from Lake Central, Tobias received his bachelor’s degree from Wabash College and then his master’s degree in administration from Indiana State University. Serving as a swim coach, English teacher, athletic director and assistant principal in his career, Tobias was employed by Lake Central, Munster and Plymouth.
Tobias’s resignation goes into effect on Friday, May 1.