Leadership
Administration
Andrea Paz y Miño Carty
Head of School
Andrea is an active member of Lancaster Monthly Meeting. She is an experienced teacher with her M.Ed. from Temple University. Andrea grew up in Philadelphia, attended Greene Street Friends School and Friends Central, as well as public schools. Currently her son attends Westtown and her daughters who thrived at George School and Westtown are in college or recently graduated.
My name is Andrea Paz y Miño Carty. I am a Montessori trained teacher with my Masters in Elementary Education from Temple University. I have taught children from preschool to 6th grade and enjoyed all of those experiences. Having been exposed to public school and Quaker education as a student, I have a deep appreciation for an excellent education with a firm foundation on the core Quaker values. My passion for social justice and my belief in the inherent value of every person is what brought me to Quakerism and what inspires me as first Head of School for Lancaster Friends School.
You can contact Andrea at acarty@lancasterfriends.org.
School Committee
Tom Latus
Co-Clerk
Tom Latus has spent most of his adult life working with children and educators in New England and Pennsylvania. After graduation from Yale University in 1972, Tom spent two years of service as a conscientious objector in hospitals in Boston and Hanover, NH. He then embarked on a career in education that spanned 46 years. During that time, he taught school-age children in public and private schools, as well as teachers in graduate school programs. He also served as an educational supervisor and administrator in treatment centers for children with emotional disturbances; as a special education consultant in the Boston area, Tom worked with educators in over 150 school communities. In the thirteen years prior to retiring in 2020, Tom worked as a behavioral specialist in a K-12 charter school In Philadelphia.
In addition to his B.A. from Yale, Tom holds an M.Ed. from Boston University in special education and an Ed.D. from Harvard University in teaching & learning. He taught in masters level programs in the Boston area at Lesley University, Wheelock College, and Harvard Graduate School of Education, as well as Penn State University/Harrisburg.
Tom joined the Society of Friends in 1985 and became a member of Lancaster Monthly Meeting in 2006. In June 2015, Tom married Sanford Hyson—his partner since 2000—under the care of Lancaster Monthly meeting. They live in Lancaster Township.
Mimi Blackwell
Co-Clerk
Mimi has worked in Quaker settings since 2005, when her older child entered kindergarten at Goshen Friends School. Currently she is the Director of Philanthropic Services at Friends Fiduciary Corporation where she supports Quaker non-profits in establishing and growing Planned Giving programs and clerks the planning committee of the FFC-sponsored Quaker Fundraisers Gathering. Before joining Friends Fiduciary, Mimi served as Head of Goshen Friends School in West Chester, Pennsylvania, a custody mediator in Chester County, and a practicing attorney in Butler County, Pennsylvania. She is a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and William Smith College. Mimi serves on the board of West Chester Friends School and Arch Street Preschool. Her two children are graduates of Wilmington Friends School and Goshen Friends School. Mimi believes the best gift you can give to a child is an education that meets their individual learning style and personality. She also feels strongly that they should learn to ski as soon as they can walk!
Darlene Byrd
David Kern
David has been involved in Friends education for 27 years working at Germantown Friends School, Penn Charter, and Plymouth Meeting Friends School. He was the founding Head of Charlotte Friends School in Charlotte, NC, and, along with his wife, Karen, has worked for the past 15 years with the Bududa Learning Center, a vocational school program in eastern Uganda that has been supported by the Quaker-led African Great Lakes Initiative. His son, Derek, graduated from Germantown Friends in 2012.
Greg Paulson
Greg is an active member of Lancaster Monthly Meeting and a conscientious objector. He is an attorney whose practice has focused on the representation of indigent persons and civil rights. He has served as the Chair of the Lancaster City Human Relations Commission and as adjunct faculty member at Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology and Reading Area Community College. He is an active member of the NAACP of Lancaster County.
Mary Cae Williams
Mary Cae Williams holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Franklin and Marshall College and a Master of Education degree from Millersville University. She is also credentialed as a Montessori teacher for ages 6-12. Mary Cae was a founding member of The New School of Lancaster (now New School Montessori.) She taught ages 6-9 and 9-12 from 1990 to 2003. From 2003 to 2017 she served there as the Head of School. Mary Cae retired in 2017 and has served on several boards since then: Stone Independent School, Lancaster Italian Cultural Society, Lancaster Shakespeare Theatre (formerly The People’s Shakespeare Project,) and Lancaster Downtowners.
Mike Kellam
Miriam Fisher
Treasurer
Miriam Fisher is a retired CPA whose professional career was spent in both the for profit and not for profit sectors. After receiving a BA in Political Science from Bryn Mawr College and an MBA from Columbia University, she spent 10 years working in marketing and internal audit for Avon Products and American Express, primarily in Latin America. Her 30-year nonprofit career included CFO positions at the American Friends Service Committee, the Chemical Heritage Foundation and Friends Central School.
Miriam's board service includes Friends Seminary, Friends Life Care at Home, Friends School Haverford, Germantown Friends School, Historic Fairhill Burial Ground and Intercultural Journeys.
She received a certificate in Horticulture from the Barnes Foundation in 2014 and in retirement runs a small garden business, Garden Guru LLC. She is a lifelong member of the Religious Society of Friends and a member of Radnor (Pa) Monthly Meeting.
Myke Rogers
Penny Miller
Penny graduated from the University of Iowa with a B.S. in science and a certificate of Dental Hygiene. After working in private practice a few years, she taught at Kalamazoo Valley Community College (Kalamazoo, Michigan) in their dental hygiene program. While in Kalamazoo, she completed a master’s degree in Teacher Education: Audio-Visual Media/Instructional Design from Western Michigan University. She continued her dental hygiene teaching career at the University of Kentucky and the University of Pennsylvania.
After some self-reflection, she discovered that she loved education, but not so much dental health. She returned to Western Michigan University and completed a Master’s in Educational Leadership: Human Resource Development.
She spent the rest of her career designing, developing, and implementing employee training classes and programs for businesses. Her last job, before semi-retiring, was at a Vocational Education School for Adults with Disabilities in Plainwell, Michigan. She partnered with the industrial instructors (the subject matter experts) to design and develop their curriculum and lesson plans. As an Administrator, she managed and facilitated the continuous improvement process, strategic planning, and the accreditation process for both the educational and rehabilitation side of the school.
Penny believes that life is a spiritual journey, and everyone is Divine. She has studied all the major religions with the intent of finding her own truth and who she really is. She is delighted to find the Quakers and their pursuit of Simplicity, Peace, Integrity, Community, Equality, and Stewardship. She attends the Lancaster Friends Meeting and is learning all about Quakerism.
Randolph Peters, MD
After graduating from Princeton University, Randy earned his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He has practiced medicine in Southwest Pennsylvania for over 25 years, and he currently serves as the Medical Director of Employee Health Services for Allegheny Health Network [AHN], as well as the Diversity Officer for the AHN Primary Care Institute.
Randy became a Quaker in 1991, when he finally found what he had been looking for in the Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting, with people who engaged in social justice work and who shared with him the testimonies that became the foundation of his beliefs. Following residency, he joined the Pittsburgh Friends Meeting, married under the care of Meeting, and taught Sunday School. Even after he had to leave the Meeting for Calvary Episcopal Church, he continued teaching Sunday School. In his last year of teaching, his co-teacher was a high school senior whom he had taught in his very first class (second grade). Although he is no longer active in church, the testimonies remain at the core of his personal beliefs and continue to guide him.
The Lancaster Friends School is committed to providing education with diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice. Although he has limited board experience (served on the board of a small private non-profit many years ago), he believes his knowledge and lived experience will be an asset to LFS in its mission. He is already engaged in DEI work in his own health care system.