Karen Paxton
Director / KMS Board of Directors, President
Karen has been a familiar face around Khalsa School since the early 1980s. She began as a young parent, PTO Board member, and finally a staff member, substituting at every campus in the Khalsa School system in the 1990s. Her three daughters have all graduated from Khalsa School. In addition to her role at Khalsa School, she enjoys gardening, cooking, yoga, and meditation. She is a certified Kundalini Yoga Teacher.
She graduated with a Bachelor’s degree from Millsaps College in 1977 and worked as a VISTA volunteer before moving to Arizona in 1979. She worked in the medical field and administered a multi-site primary care practice for eleven years. She has completed graduate courses in business and education. In 2002, Karen completed her AMS certification as a Montessori Middle School teacher at the Houston Montessori Center.
As the Director of Admissions for the charter elementary and the private primary/toddler schools, she coordinates the application and registration process for both campuses. She is the primary contact for communicating information about Khalsa School to prospective parents as well as maintaining effective contact with them throughout the year. She also conducts tours of the school for prospective parents.
Carie Modeer
KMS Board of Directors, Vice President
Carie joined the Khalsa School in 1999 as a Lower Elementary assistant. After graduating from Penn State University with a degree in Elementary. Outside of gaining her degree in education, Carie worked for six years as an assistant teacher in a Christian Daycare in Pennsylvania. She also held part-time positions in childcare throughout her college years. After experiencing Montessori for the first time at Khalsa and gaining a passion for the Montessori method she made the choice to become trained as a Montessori Lead Teacher. Carie has been a Lower Elementary Lead Teacher since 2004 and joined the Charter Board of Directors as a Teacher representative in 2021.
Rasha Alebrahim
KMS Board of Directors, Secretary and Treasurer (pending ASBCS approval)
Rasha is the Associate Director at Khalsa. She has been a dedicated Montessori educator since 2009. She moved with her family to Arizona in 2011 where she taught at Villa Montessori for four year. She then became a teaching Head of School at St. Peter’s Montessori School in Litchfield Park, where, for three years, she mentored teachers, grew enrollment, and opened Infant and Toddler programs. She earned her BS and MA in Psychology from the University of Damascus, Syria. She now lives in Phoenix with her husband and two children who are attending in the Khalsa Primary Program.
Angela Walker
KMS Board of Directors, Member
Angela is our parent representitive. She and her family have been with Khalsa for several years. She is mother to 3 Khalsa students, one in the Primary program and two in the Charter. She joined the Board of Direcors in 2022.
Revay Cargo
KMS Board of Directors, Member (pending ASBCS approval)
Revay has been with Khalsa since 2021. She has worked in many different school settings as an assistant along with being a lead. She is currently in school becoming Montessori certified. She strongly believes teaching is her passion and agrees with Maria Montessori when she said “Early childhood education is the key to the betterment of society.”
This is her first year as a Board Member.
Bryan Murphy
KMS Board of Directors, Member
Bryan Murphy is a Community Representative and former parent representative on the KMPS and KMES Board of Directors. He has a B.A. from Yale University and received his J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. He has practiced law with a Phoenix firm since his admission to the Arizona Bar in 1980. His two children have both attended the Khalsa Montessori School.