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A new head of school takes the reins at Maui Prep

Former educational consultant says he missed working with students, teachers, parents

Robert Landau

When Maui Preparatory Academy begins its school year on Monday, it will see a new face at the helm: Robert Landau is the new head of school.

He replaces Jonathan Silver, who moved to the Mainland, Landau said Tuesday.

As recently as 2017, Landau was the executive director of the Hawaii Association of Independent Schools. It is an organization that preserves and strengthens private school education in Hawaii. He then started his own education consulting business, “Two Roads Education.” He worked with not only private schools but also charter schools and the state Department of Education.

Prior to that, he lived and worked abroad for more than 40 years in countries such as Switzerland, Indonesia, the Czech Republic, China, Cambodia and Singapore. He was a teacher and administrator in a variety of international schools, which were English-medium schools for students representing an average of 60 nationalities from the business, diplomatic, entrepreneurial and private sectors. The schools he worked at ranged from 45 to 4,000 students. He also helped start the first international charter school in the United States in Monterey, Calif.

In his consulting capacity, Landau was poised to find a new headmaster for the Napili private school, but instead he took the job.

Landau said he was missing the one-to-one human component.

“I was getting more and more away from the work I really love to do, working with students and teachers and parents,” he said. “I see that at Maui Prep, there is a lot of opportunities here that can still be realized.”

Landau said he classifies himself as a “futurist.”

And similar to his consulting business, he sees a future at Maui Prep as a campus that is “vigorous” in its studies but also “relevant.”

“It ultimately prepares students for the real world, but with unpredictable events and occurrences,” he said, comparing it to the old educational model that prepared students for more school down the line.

In an email, Landau said: “As Head of School at Maui Prep, I am here to collaboratively help transform the school into a cutting-edge 21st century learning center.”

The teachings will not only reflect integration of technology into studies, but they will show students how they can use technology to do important things.

He said it is amazing what students can do before ever leaving high school.

In Cambodia, he helped build and develop the Liger Leadership Academy where, after five years, students published books, some of which are available on Amazon, started their own businesses, and consulted with other schools and businesses.

Overall, not only do students need to know how to read and do math, they need to be educated on global issues as well, he said. For example, students can see what they can learn from deforestation in Brazil.

Even though Maui Prep is a private school, Landau said he is open with collaboration with other schools, including public schools.

“Kids are kids,” he said. “It’s my hope to collaborate and interact with our neighbors and not think that Maui Prep is up here by itself, doing something no one else is doing.”

Landau will see around 215 students at the preschool to 12th-grade campus as the new school year begins. He said it’s not the highest enrollment.

“We’d like it to be a little bit higher. That’s our challenge ahead,” he said.

Landau’s arrival comes at a time when the school is expanding.

Ready for the school year are tot-sized preschool bathrooms. The space for a Center for Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship for all students is still being worked on, and ideally it will be open sometime in the fall, officials said.

The projects are a first in a series slated to take place on the campus over the next three years.

More space is being adding for the school’s preschool students, a group for which there’s a growing demand.

Landau’s wife and an adult son continue to live on Oahu. They work at two different private schools. Another adult son is a Marine.

In his spare time, Landau likes to swim and go scuba diving. He’s also a songwriter and singer who specializes in writing children’s songs.

* Melissa Tanji can be reached at mtanji@mauinews.com.

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