Meet Our Dedicated Team at Vita High School
Andrew Lee
(He/Him)
Founder
CEO
Andrew Lee is the Founder and CEO of Vita High School, which he launched after serving in Teach For America and earning his M.Ed. in Arizona. He began as a high school math teacher, where his students consistently outperformed school averages, and later explored entrepreneurship through ventures like online courses and Amazon FBA. Inspired to rethink traditional education, he joined several school-creation fellowships, including with 4.0 Schools and High Tech High, which helped shape Vita’s learner-driven model.
Rio Stinger
(He/Him)
Co-Founder
Director of Student Success
Rio Stinger is the Co-Founder and Director of Student Success at Vita High School, where he leads daily school operations and student support. Like Andrew, he joined Teach For America in Arizona, earning his M.Ed. and teaching certificate while working in the classroom. Passionate about mentorship and individual growth, he helped shape Vita’s culture around strong relationships, emotional well-being and real-world readiness.
Chris Lengyel
(He/Him)
Director of Operations & Growth
Chris Lengyel is Vita High School’s Director of Operations & Growth, bringing 9+ years of operational and business development leadership. He currently serves as Operations & Business Development Leader at Always Green Turf in Arizona, where he directs full-lifecycle operations from client acquisition through completion. Since 2017 he has also run an independent consulting practice, building CRM automation workflows, B2B partnership pipelines, and ROI-driven marketing systems for small and mid-sized businesses. Chris holds an MBA from Grand Canyon University.
Benjamin Minor
(He/Him)
Dean of Learning & Culture
Ben Minor is the Dean of Learning & Culture at Vita High School, bringing 22 years across Title I classrooms, English department leadership, and statewide charter school oversight. He joins Vita from the Arizona State Board for Charter Schools, where he supported a portfolio of more than 600 schools statewide. He spent 13 years teaching English before that — including four years leading the department at Arizona Agribusiness & Equine Center and four years at Vicki A. Romero High School.
Nancy Moreno
(She/Her)
Lead Nutrition Guide
Miss Nancy is married and a proud mother of three. One of her greatest passions is baking, which inspired her to start a small home-based business while caring for her family. Through this venture, Nancy began offering online baking classes that reached audiences across Latin America, Europe, and Canada, with some sessions receiving up to 5,000 views. Her love for cooking and sharing knowledge eventually led her to the field of nutrition education.
Gloria Astudillo
(She/Her)
Guide
Miss Gloria is a guide at Vita High School. She has been part of Vita since its founding and is passionate about supporting students’ academic and personal growth. Gloria believes English is a gateway to imagination, critical thinking, and self-discovery. She loves being part of Vita’s empowering community, helping students succeed both in school and in life.
Brian Johnson
(He/Him)
Guide
Brian Johnson joins Vita as a guide bringing 25+ years of relationship-centered education leadership across Arizona and Michigan. He served most recently as Principal at Desert Choice Schools in Arizona, leading alternative and specialized education programming. Before that he spent 15 years across Arizona school districts as a Principal, Assistant Principal, School Administrator, and Teacher. Outside education, Brian founded Sober Together Community, an online recovery and wellness community he leads with authentic storytelling.
Karen Couch
(She/Her)
Guide
Karen Couch joins Vita as a guide, bringing 15+ years across K-12 education, collegiate athletics, and municipal recreation. Most recently she served as PE Teacher and Head Coach at Osborn Middle School in Phoenix and as CTE Digital Communications Educator at City View High School. She also spent 13 years with Mecklenburg County Park & Recreation in North Carolina. Karen holds a Master’s in Business Marketing from Strayer University and is CTE, CPR, and AED certified.
Betty Hernandez
(She/Her)
Nutrition Guide
Betty Hernandez brings her passion for culinary traditions and student wellness to her role at Vita High School. A lover of the outdoors and cultural holidays, Betty enjoys sharing her heritage and supporting our students’ growth through the school’s unique cooking and nutrition programs.
Portrait of an Educator
At Vita High School, educators, whether serving as academic guides or life coaches are more than teachers. They are mentors, models, and facilitators of growth who embody the values and practices they seek to instill in students.
A Vita Educator is:
Purpose Driven
Lives with clarity and direction, actively pursuing their own dreams and purpose. Their personal example shows students what it looks like to design and live a meaningful life.
Practically Skilled
Applies real world life skills in finances, health, relationships, and self management, modeling the very competencies we expect of our graduates.
Empowering Guide
Encourages students to take the lead whenever possible, creating structures where learners practice agency, responsibility, and leadership.
Curator of Struggle
Recognizes that growth comes from healthy productive struggle. Rather than rescuing students with quick answers, they design and hold space for challenges that stretch learners and build resilience.
Compassionate Challenger
Balances empathy and accountability, offering support while holding high expectations so that students rise to their best selves.
Innovator and Learner
Embraces creativity, experimentation, and continuous self improvement, demonstrating the mindset of lifelong learning.
Community Builder
Creates belonging and collaboration among students, staff, families, and community partners, reinforcing that connection is the opposite of isolation.
Declaration of Powerful Learning
Purpose
At Vita High School we believe that powerful learning is the force that transforms lives. We make this declaration so that every student, educator, and family understands how learning occurs here, why it matters, and what we expect one another to do so that our mission of preparing young adults for life and helping them realize their dreams now becomes real.
Beliefs About Learning
- Learning is student centered — learners have voice and choice, take leadership over their growth, and are active agents in discovering their purpose.
- Learning is built through productive struggle — real challenges, not handouts. Educators design experiences where learners must think deeply, wrestle with complexity, and grow through effort.
- Learning is both practical and transferable — skills and knowledge go beyond school walls to real life; financial literacy, self management, adaptability matter.
- Learning is authentic and meaningful — work has purpose, connects to the world beyond the classroom and serves community.
- Learning is relational and reflective — relationships, feedback, and self awareness are central; students reflect often on how they are growing.
What Powerful Learning Looks Like in Practice
- Every student engages in weekly life skills and coaching time that explicitly builds adult competencies (money management, health, communication, resilience).
- Students are entrusted with leadership through roles (student jobs, student council, peer support) rather than always being directed by adults.
- Curriculum and projects include authentic tasks with real audience, community engagement, service, field experiences.
- Assessment includes self reflection, peer feedback, and opportunities for revision rather than only final grades.
- Struggle is expected, scaffolded, and supported; teachers coach rather than fix; students are given space to persist.
Implications for Educators, Students, and School Culture
- Educators commit to growing in their ability to guide, not rescue; to create safe and challenge balanced spaces.
- Staff development will include training in design of powerful learning, feedback, struggle, student agency.
- Schedules intentionally include time for life skills, purpose work, and experiences that align with the Graduate Profile.
- Policies, rewards, recognition (including leveling up) will honor not just content mastery but growth in self mastery, agency, compassion, and contribution.
Our Commitment
This Declaration is aligned with our mission to prepare students for life and help them realize their dreams now. It supports our Core Values — Self Awareness, Initiative, Innovation, Change making, Compassion — by making them lived, not just stated. It ensures that our Graduate Profile outcomes (High Level Thinker; Money Maker Manager Investor; Master of Self; Connected Community Contributor) are not only what students leave with, but what they build every day.
We, the Vita High School community, students, educators, families, commit to these principles and promise to revisit and refine this declaration over time, ensuring it continues to meet the needs of our learners and reflects who we are called to become.