Paul F. Frost, 53, a Philadelphia public school teacher for 20 years, died of renal failure on New Year's Day in Lankenau Hospital. He lived in the Wynnefield section of Philadelphia.

From 1988 to 2003, Mr. Frost was a math coordinator and technology specialist at Shoemaker Middle School near 53d and Media Streets, and for the next two years he taught at Alexander Hamilton Middle School near 56th and Spruce Streets, both in West Philadelphia. He retired in 2005.

Mr. Frost's sister, Charlene Frost-Dixon, said that in the 1990s he founded the Boyz to Men mentoring program at Shoemaker.

Before teaching in Philadelphia, Mr. Frost was an education coordinator at the Martin Luther King Center in Waterloo, Iowa, in the late 1970s. In the early 1980s, he worked in the education and youth programs of the Chicago Urban League.

A native of Waterloo, Mr. Frost was a member of the class of 1973 at East Waterloo High School and graduated in 1977 from the National College of Education in Evanston, Ill.

While in college, he sang with the Northwestern University Community Ensemble Choir and acted with the Fleetwood-Jordan Theatre Group.

At Mt. Carmel Baptist Church in West Philadelphia, he was a member of the laity day committee and of the church anniversary committee.

A life member of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, Mr. Frost was given the group's Brother of the Year award in the 1990s, his family said. He was chairman of the group's education committee for many years and set up its book-award program to help middle-school students buy books.

Besides his sister, Mr. Frost is survived by his mother, Charlotte, and brothers, William and Rodney.

A viewing was set for 9 a.m. today at Mt. Carmel Baptist Church, 5732 Race St. A 10 a.m. service there by his fraternity will be followed by an 11 a.m. funeral service. Burial is planned for Tuesday at the Garden of Memories Cemetery in Waterloo.