Ann Klotz plops into a comfy chair in her cluttered office at Laurel School, one sandaled foot tucked underneath her and her long hair pulled back loosely. On her wrist is a Mickey Mouse watch with a delicate hanky tucked into the band.
Every surface of her office is covered with evidence that Klotz is not only Laurel’s head of school but also an English and drama teacher, a mom and a tireless advocate for girls. There are toys left midplay by her 6-year-old son, stacks of books about girls and their development, and endless gadgets that Laurel students can tinker with during visits to her office.
“She has incredible poise but the heart of a child inside,” says Anne Conway Juster, chairperson of the board for the 114-year-old girls school and head of the search committee that hired Klotz as its 10th head of school in 2004.
Klotz has left a legacy after just six years, not only for the thousands of girls who’ve walked Laurel’s halls during her tenure, but also for the faculty, the community and the school’s national profile.
Need proof? Just look at any of Klotz’s ambitious initiatives. In 2007, she started the Center for Research on Girls to spearhead nationally recognized original research on the development and education of young women.
She turned the school’s 140 acres of property in Geauga County — “a blank slate” with little more than athletic fields when Klotz was hired, says Conway Juster — into a second campus, home to the new Butler Center for Fitness and Wellness and a life-size Magic Tree House, named for the Mary Pope Osborne children’s book series.
Under Klotz’s leadership, the school has achieved record enrollment and fundraising levels, and it received its largest one-time gift, $5 million, in 2007. And in 2008, she created a partnership called the North Star Collaborative, which fosters shared academic experiences between Laurel students and third- and fourth-graders at Warner Girls’ Leadership Academy, part of the Cleveland Metropolitan School District.
“I am raising up a generation of lionesses,” says Klotz, a reference to the position of female lions as hunters and core members of their prides. “They’re going to be ready to take on the world, confident in their voice, determined to make a difference for good.”
Yes, Klotz is a big-idea woman with the endless energy to see her ideas to fruition. But she’s also devoted to the heart of Laurel’s mission — its students.
“She walks the hallways, she knows the girls by name. She has a very human approach,” says Kathryn Purcell, a science teacher and co-director of Laurel’s Upper School. “She keeps the kids at the center of everything, and if you follow that simple rule, it’s hard to go wrong.”
Klotz is a product of the all-girls Agnes Irwin School in Rosemont, Pa., and has degrees from Yale and New York University. She began her career teaching theater and English in the housing projects of New Haven, Conn.
“I thought I was going to save the world by being an urban educator,” she says. Life instead led her back to the girls-school environment, “and now I can’t imagine what else I would ever do,” she says. “I wake up every day so excited about the work we’re doing.”
Klotz has been married to Seth Orbach, a theatrical lighting designer who teaches at Laurel, for 25 years. They have three children, two teenage daughters who attend Laurel and a 6-year-old son. The family spends their summers in Eagles Mere, Pa., running the Ensemble Theater Community School, a three-week, live-in theater program for 14- to 18-year-olds that Klotz and Orbach founded in 1980.
Opportunities to mentor other women arise through Klotz’s involvement in professional organizations such as the Headmistresses Association of the East, where she counsels new female heads of school. She also serves as mentor to countless Laurel alumnae and faculty like Purcell, a mother of four who benefited from another Klotz invention — a co-directorship in Upper School administration. By sharing the directorship with another working mother, Purcell’s enjoyed greater balance between work and family commitments.
“She has built such amazing rapport in this school community,” Purcell says. “She’s very magical. It’s remarkable to be around her and see an idea that sounds outrageous turn into success.”