Meet our Administrative Staff

Angie Wakeman: Founder/Director

When Angie was in elementary school, she wrote a list of all the careers that interested her, the qualities needed for those careers, and which traits she had that matched those fields.  Teaching was on the list.  Twelve years later in 2004, Angie graduated from Moravian College with a double major in English and Spanish and a minor in secondary education. 

After teaching abroad for a year, she returned to her alma mater, Liberty High School, and taught English until 2013 when her second daughter was born. It has always been her desire to be at home to raise her kids, so she resigned from teaching. As she noticed her children's natural curiosity and love of learning, she longed for a method of education that considers the whole child in its approach and feeds that curiosity and love of learning. Charlotte Mason's philosophy was the answer to what she was looking for. She found many parents also wanted a developmentally appropriate education and were interested in homeschooling but needed support and community. Out of a desire to meet these needs, she co-founded PHA, a hybrid homeschool program that seeks to partner with parents in an encouraging, engaging, and caring educational environment.

Amy Wheeler: Aspen Supervisor

After marrying Jim, her high school sweetheart, Amy spent several years teaching in Philadelphia and Maryland. Later, she was blessed to be able to stay home with her three children and to homeschool them through graduation. Amy has always been passionate about education and early on in homeschooling discovered Charlotte Mason's philosophy. She feels that Mason's understanding of children shows a deep respect for the individual and the way God has made him or her, while also urging us as parents to help them form good habits and always require their best efforts. Amy tried to build her homeschooling plans around these ideas, while trusting God with the outcome.

While continuing to teach middle school history and geography, Amy is excited to also take on the role of administrator for the brand new Aspen program. Since we cannot know what might excite our children and awaken their minds to new ideas, we will offer a wide variety of the very best books and activities, time in nature, and free play outdoors. As PHA continues to expand to meet the needs of the growing homeschool community, Amy hopes to encourage parents and lead a new team of teachers in "spreading the feast".

Rebecca Foley: Founder/Director

Originally hailing from rural Western New York, Rebecca moved to the Lehigh Valley in 2006 to pursue her Master's degree in Economics at Lehigh University. After very nearly moving back to the Rochester area in 2008, Rebecca was offered a second assistantship at Lehigh to pursue her Master's in Educational Leadership.

Shortly after graduating in Spring 2009, she married a Lehigh Valley native and had her first baby in October of 2010. While staying home with her girls, Rebecca worked part-time as a tutor, academic coordinator, and adjunct professor.  As her oldest reached school age, and despite having a third child on the way (a boy this time!) , she realized none of the school choices out there were really the right fit for her family’s needs. Since, starting a school was a vision she had had long before having her own kids, creating a school that would fit this gap she felt as a parent, seemed like an natural step. She would never have guessed that so many other families would have the same need and PHA would grow in leaps and bounds. In her spare time, she enjoys working out, hiking, designing and painting various parts of her house or yard, and hanging out with her varying number of goats, chickens, and dogs.