Project Description
Amanda McDonald, Fellow
Lake Middle School
Denver, CO
Amanda McDonald has been the principal at Lake Middle School in Denver Public Schools since 2018. She is honored and humbled to serve the Northwest Denver community! Prior to this role, Amanda served as a Dean of Instruction, Assistant Principal and Principal Resident for a turnaround school in Northeast Denver. Through using intentional planning and coaching, she was able to collaborate with fellow leaders to turnaround a red school to a green school and achieve longitudinal high growth scores for 3 consecutive years. Additionally, they had the highest scores on ACCESS for our second language learners in the state of Colorado. After one year at Lake Middle School, our English Language Arts growth moved from “approaching” to “meets expectations”. Additionally, our Medium Growth Percentile within school gaps for English Language Learners moved from “approaching” to “exceeds” . She has worked in Denver Public Schools for 13 years and received an exemplary teaching award while she was an elementary teacher in Denver Public Schools. She studied History at the University of Colorado for her undergraduate degree. Additionally, she attained her principal licensure through the Ritchie Program for School Leaders: Executive Leadership for Successful Schools at the University of Denver. She was born and raised in Denver with 5 boys of her own, all still currently in elementary school in Denver Public Schools!
Dino Reyes Jr., Ally
Dean of Culture
Lake Middle School
Denver, CO
Dino Reyes Jr. is serving his 5th year as the Dean of Culture at Lake Middle School and is working his 13th year in Title I settings for Denver Public Schools. Dino was born and raised in Denver, Colorado and is honored to serve the same school community that he attended as a middle school student. Dino has worked at three turnaround schools in Northwest Denver starting at Trevista K-8 moving from turnaround state status to distinguished on the school performance framework. Additionally, West Early College moved from red to yellow on the school performance framework. Lastly, Lake Middle School started as the lowest performing school in DPS and was able to move from red to yellow in one year on the state performance framework from 2018 to 2019. Dino was featured for his culture work on NPR and CPR during the pandemic and is highlighted as a district example throughout DPS to train and mentor leaders in establishing a culture that celebrates and empowers culture. Dino's entire family is committed to the Northwest community. His wife is a Dean of Operations and all of Dino's children are products of Denver Public Schools, three of them are Lake Knights.