Board of Directors
Sarah Kwilinski
President and Founding Director
Sarah Kwilinski is a certified special education teacher with over two decades of experience as a public school special education teacher and consultant. Her interest in high-quality pedagogy and curricula led her to the classical education renewal movement and the founding of Sundial Classical Farmstead, a farm school that welcomes students with special education needs. She admires Charlotte Mason and Maria Montessori and seeks to create an environment where both would feel at home. Sarah regularly speaks on the topic of school design with a focus on the integration of special education and classical education pedagogical practices. She earned a Masters of Arts in Classical Teaching from the Templeton Honors College at Eastern University in 2024. Sarah lives in East Lansing, MI, with her husband and five children.
Amy Richards
Founding Director
Amy Gilbert Richards, PhD is Affiliate Professor and Chair of Philosophy at Eastern University in St. Davids, PA a suburb of Philadelphia. She is also a Faculty Fellow of the Templeton Honors College’s Master of Arts in Classical Teaching program. She lives in Havertown, PA. Her most recent publication is Disability and Classical Education. For more background, visit her faculty page at Templeton.
Mindi Grieser Cromwell
Founding Director
Mindi Grieser Cromwell, PhD is Chair of the Ministry and Theology Department at Central Christian College of Kansas. She lives in McPherson, KS. For more background, visit her faculty page at Central.
Sarah Scudder
Director
Sarah Scudder works as the Director’s Assistant for Nyansa Classical Community. She has 10+ years teaching elementary school phonics, math, and music at Claritas Classical Academy in Pennsylvania where she also serves on the Board of Directors and as Language Arts Chair. Over the last few years, she has developed and written multiple curricula in Bible, phonics, literature, and other areas alongside acquiring a Masters of Arts in Teaching in Classical Education from Templeton Honors College. Her most recent appearance was on the Anchored podcast where she appeared with Dr. Angel Adams Parham, author of The Black Intellectual Tradition, in an episode on Classical Education in Underserved Communities. Sarah lives in inner-city Philadelphia where she works alongside her husband in ministry at Bethel Chapel Church. They have four daughters who attend Claritas Classical Academy and keep them on their toes.
Staff
Allison O’Rourke
Lower Elementary Instructor and Nature Study Guide
Allison O’Rourke has a Masters of Social Work from Michigan State University. She has spent her career working with and advocating for children as an Early Interventionist for Early On and as a School Social Worker at both a charter school and a public school. Allison took a few years to stay home with her four children and during this time she started teaching nature-based classes to children at a local park. Allison and her family love the outdoors and spending time tent camping. Allison is excited to bring this love of adventure and exploration to the students at Sundial.
Matthew Romans
Director of Common Arts
Matthew Romans has worked on and managed organic farms for over 10 years. A graduate of MSU’s Organic Farmer Training Program, he has been teaching students at Sundial Classical since 2022 & joined full-time in the summer of 2025 as the Common Arts Director. Passionate about classical education, Matthew believes in providing students with meaningful agrarian experiences so they might grow in wonder and gratitude for everything they learn at school, home, and in their future vocations. He is blessed with a wonderful wife & 3 children, living near the school in East Lansing, MI.
Sarah Smith
Latin, Art, & Religious Education Instructor
Sarah Smith holds a BA in Biblical Studies from Olivet Nazarene University and an MDiv from Asbury Theological Seminary where she spent all her electives on the Ancient Near East. Some of her specialties include Biblical archaeology – she spent a summer living in Israel digging at Tel Abel Beth Maacah – as well as Biblical Hebrew serving as the teaching assistant and grader for two years in Seminary. She also teaches at St. Raphael School | Scholé Academy. Sarah is a wife, a mom of three young kids, and an avid reader. She and her family live in St. Johns, MI.