Hello and welcome. In addition to answering your questions about our school and its program, we hope our site gives you a sense of the character of Connecticut Friends School. We believe CFS is a compelling model of a school community for all its constituents: students, families, staff, and friends.

Within a Friends school, there is an excitement from being in a place where it is considered ‘cool’ to enjoy learning, to respect intelligence and achievement, to value collaboration over competition. Our school is a jewel amongst schools in this area because it is an intimate environment where everyone is known and supported.

We put a premium on this quality of being known and appreciated, and both the scale and organization of our program reflect this. Our students come to possess an uncommon poise and an uncommon kindness. Imagine a class of 2nd, 3rd and 4th grade students presenting their LiterARTure projects to a roomful of parents, staff and middle school students. Our middle school students step outside of the gravity of young adolescent self-absorption and honor the work of their young schoolmates with genuine appreciation and excitement. That these types of events and connections are daily occurrences at CFS makes them no less extraordinary.

We describe what we do here as serious work in a joyous atmosphere. We hope you’ll come visit and see for yourself.

Yours truly,

Kim Tsocanos and Mark Dansereau
Co-Heads of Connecticut Friends School

Maribeth Becker, Trustee since 2007
Maribeth has had a career in market research for a variety of clients including Kraft Foods, Nielsen, and Yankelovich Partners. Currently she is a paid consultant for the Norwalk Redevelopment Agency and an active volunteer leader or appointee in a number of organizations such as Norwalk Arts Commission, Tree Advisory Committee, Norwalk YMCA Board of Directors, Norwalk Preservation Trust, and various neighborhood groups. Maribeth received her B.S. in Statistics from Rutgers University. She and her husband, Bob, are Norwalk residents and their daughter, Amelia, is a CFS student, Class of 2014. Maribeth and Amelia recently became members of Wilton Monthly Meeting

Rebecca Bunnell, Trustee since 2008
A marketer who specializes in new product development and innovation, Rebecca runs her own consultancy, creating ideas for new brands Previously, she has worked for Diageo, a spirits and beverage alcohol company, Black and Decker and American Express. She earned a BA from Yale and an MBA from Northwestern. She grew up as a member of the Princeton Friends Meeting. After moving to Wilton in 1991, she transferred membership to Wilton Meeting, where she has served as clerk. Currently, Rebecca is clerk of both the finance and nominating committees. In addition, she is training to become a prison workshop facilitator through the Alternatives to Violence program. Her husband, Doug Bunnell, and she have two adult children.

Frederick Dettmer, Trustee since 2003
Clerk, Board of Trustees
Fred is an attorney in private practice, with a specialty in civil litigation and nonprofits. He earned his undergraduate degree from University of California, Santa Cruz and attended Yale Law School. A birthright Friend, Fred is a member of Purchase Monthly Meeting in Westchester. He has been active in such Quaker organizations as Friends Council on National Legislation, American Friends Service Committee, New York Yearly Meeting, Bolivia Quaker Education Fund, and Friends Peace Teams. In his spare time, Fred referees soccer games and rides a motorcycle. He and his wife have two sons, one of whom graduated from the George School in 2006.

Robert Docters, Trustee since 2009
Rob is a Managing Partner in Abbey Road Associates, LLP, which he founded in 2002. A lead consulting firm specializing in strategy and pricing, the company grew from solo to a practice of six partners serving publishers, consumer packaged goods, retailers, information providers, entertainment and software/tech firms. Rob also wrote Winning the Profit Game: Smarter pricing, Smarter Branding, McGraw-Hill (2004), an alternative Business Book of the Month Club selection. He earned his undergraduate degree from Stanford University, his law degree from College of William and Mary, and an MBA (Finance) from Columbia University. A member of Wilton Meeting, he lives in New Canaan with his wife, Nancy Lothrop.

Maureen Jackson, Trustee Ex Officio
Maureen has been the Director of Helen Gander Friends Nursery School, which shares its campus with CFS, since 1996. Before that, she taught there beginning in 1985. She wrote a chapter for a book called Faith in Children: Stories from Faith-Based Children’s Centers. A lifelong resident of Fairfield County, Maureen currently lives with her husband in Wilton. Their two adult children attended Helen Gander. She has attended Wilton Monthly Meeting for the past 20 years.

Munro Johnson, Trustee since 2007
Munro is an urban planner at the Norwalk Redevelopment Agency, where he oversees the design, development, delivery and community approval of projects such as the Wall Street redevelopment initiative. Previously, he worked for Middletown, Connecticut’s Department of Planning Conservation and Development, where he wrote Middletown Design: A Framework for Development. It received an Award for Excellence from the Connecticut Planning Association. In addition, he has worked for the Shimizu Corporation in Japan, the City of New London, and on a transportation study for Philadelphia. Munro earned his master’s of city planning from the University of Pennsylvania. He graduated from Oberlin College with a major in Eastern Asian Studies and is fluent in Japanese. A birthright Friend, Munro transferred his membership from Westerly Monthly Meeting in Rhode Island to Wilton Monthly Meeting in 2003.

Ed Mount, Trustee from 2002 to 2009, current Treasurer, Finance Committee
A graduate of M.I.T., Ed has started several businesses, including Elysium Capital Group (a global-macro hedge fund), Elysium Technology Group (a financial services and online-gaming software provider), and The Bank of New Canaan (a community bank). He attended The Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago for two years, before a ten-year stint in Europe working in international finance with Swiss Bank Corporation. Although Ed did not attend Quaker schools himself, he comes from a long line of Friends School graduates, including his mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, all of whom graduated from Moorestown Friends School. Ed is the parent of former CFS students Lee and Harry, and current CFS student Mitchell.

Lynne Murray, Trustee since 2009
Lynne worked in Operations Management, specifically in the area of Road and Bridge Maintenance and Facility Maintenance, at one time supervising an organization comprised of over 850 people and a $50 million budget. She earned her MBA in Operations Management at Columbia University and her undergraduate degree in Economics and Statistics from Rutgers University. She is an active attendee at Purchase Monthly Meeting in Purchase, New York, where she lives with her husband, Brian Hoffmann. Their children, Caleigh and Dylan Hoffmann, are current students at Connecticut Friends School.

Jane Olsen, Trustee since 2008
Jane is a fifth grade teacher at St. Luke’s School in New Canaan. She earned a BA in Russian Studies from Wellesley and did graduate work in Russian History at Columbia University (MA, Phil, and Certificate of International Affairs) as a President’s Fellow. Jane worked for a Washington think tank debriefing émigré Soviet scientists and hosting official Soviet visitors. During the 14 years she was home raising children, she was a volunteer for the Board of the River Study Environmental Education Program for school districts on the Norwalk River (including running the Ridgefield program in elementary schools) and serving as director of several major soccer tournaments. A birthright Friend, Jane grew up in Long Island’s Westbury Meeting. Her parents were founders of Westbury Friends School, which she attended. She also attended George School and went to Friends World College, co-founded by her father. Currently a member of Purchase Meeting, she is a member of the Corporation of the American Friends Service Committee. Jane served for ten years on the Board of Oakwood Friends School. She and her husband, Robert, have three daughters and live in Ridgefield, Connecticut. Their daughter Emma graduated from Earlham College in 2008.