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.
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.
Bethany Vitaro: Program Support Manager
Bethany Vitaro was one of those kids who loved school. She had the benefit of a wonderful private, Christian education and thrived in a more traditional academic environment. But when the time came for her oldest to enroll in school, she was reluctant to relinquish the relaxed days of early childhood for the rigors of formal academics. Thus the Vitaro family became accidental homeschoolers and nine years later are still homeschooling. They first joined PHA for the 2019-2020 school year and are especially excited to have all three children enrolled.
Bethany and her husband, Rob, have been married for 20 years and live with their children in Bethlehem Township. Rob and Bethany are both writers and published authors, and active in a local Christian writers’ group. They are also active in their local church. Bethany has been a MOPS leader, a dance ministry coordinator and choreographer, a small group leader, an adult class teacher, and a children’s and youth Sunday school teacher and aide. She and Rob currently serve together in the church nursery.
Bethany has a degree in English Writing from Eastern University with additional concentrations in Psychology and Dance. She has a background in the educational non-profit sector and has also taught creative writing.
When she isn’t at PHA or homeschooling her kids, you can find her writing (or editing) one of her latest works in progress, reading, knitting, or dancing.