Calabasas : Meadow Oaks School Appoints Headmaster

The private Meadow Oaks School in Calabasas, plunged into turmoil earlier this year after its planned sale to a neighboring school fell through, has appointed a permanent headmaster.

Howard Karlitz said he will work to “restore the trust” of parents still angry over how the planned sale to neighboring Viewpoint School was handled. “I think the most important thing is to concentrate on keeping lines of communication open between parents and the headmaster’s office,” said Karlitz, who replaces interim headmaster Dennis Fliegelman.

Controversy aside, the 49-year-old ex-New Yorker said he was attracted to the school by its “wonderful reputation.”

“I sensed that the parents are very caring, as are the teachers, administrators and directors,” he said.

Since June, 1993, Karlitz has been director of the Ohr Eliyahu Academy in Culver City, a private school serving pre-kindergarten through the eighth grade that was formerly known as the Streisand School. He also has been a free-lance writer for the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times and other publications.

Karlitz, an educator for 27 years, said his main goal is to “establish a strong writing program” at Meadow Oaks, partly by urging children to read more. He once wrote in a newspaper column that parents should “pull the plug” on their children’s television sets.

“I want to get young children to love the touch, the feel of paper and ink,” he said in an interview Friday. “It turns them on to the fact that there is something very profound and very moving and giving in the written word.”

In February, school officials announced plans to sell its property to Viewpoint, a decision that left many parents scrambling to find new schools for their children in time for the fall. Six weeks later, the school announced that the deal had fallen through and that it would remain open. By then, many parents had already enrolled their children elsewhere.