Easterner Takes Post at Viewpoint School

John O’Brien said the opportunity to teach and lead the mid-grade level at Viewpoint School in Calabasas was enough of an incentive for him to head west from his native Massachusetts.

O’Brien, who started as head of Viewpoint’s middle school on July 1, will oversee fifth- through eighth-grade classes with a total enrollment of about 210 next year. In addition to his administrative duties, he will teach a fifth-grade U.S. history class and hopes to coach an athletic team. Viewpoint is a private school for kindergarten through high school students.

Before coming to Viewpoint, O’Brien was head of the history department and dean of middle school at the Portledge School in Locust Valley, N.Y. He also has served as assistant dean of admission at the Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., taught social studies at Tower Hill School in Delaware and coached at a number of schools.

Viewpoint Headmaster Robert Dworkoski said O’Brien was chosen because of his experience, his teaching style, his easy manner with people and his athletic experience.

“He has personal knowledge as well as a sensitivity of the academic needs of a middle-school-age child as well as an understanding of that age,” Dworkoski said.