Kenneth Spinney Takes Over As Special Services Director
Kenneth Spinney II is the new special services director to the Wells-Ogunquit Community School District.
Spinney, who previously served as a learning strategist at the Howard C. Reiche and Jack Elementary schools in Portland, began his new job in July. He supervises a staff of 70 and oversees the district’s special services, gifted/talented and English Language Learners programs.
A Bangor native, Spinney has been in special services teaching and administration since 1990. He has a master’s degree from the University of Southern Maine.
Spinney studied business education at Husson College, trained race horses in Delray Beach, Fla., and worked as an electrician’s helper before entering the special education program at the University of Maine at Farmington in 1986. He graduated from that university with honors and was a Blaine House Scholar.
Spinney has taught in a Pittsfield Elementary School, where he was the sole special educator, and in Bangor, at the Acadia Hospital, where he served students with mental illness. He stays active in the field of education during the summer and recently piloted an extended school year services program for children with Asperger’s syndrome at Camp Ketcha.
Spinney says the field of special services, formerly called special education, faces many challenges ahead. His top goal as an educator is to see the as yet unfulfilled commitment of the federal government to fund special services programs with 40 percent funding as stated in the Individual Disabilities Education Act of 1988, later amended to the Individuals Disabilities Improvement Act of 1994.
Spinney is seeking parent volunteers to help with revising a special education handbook.
“I am excited to be here in Wells,” said Spinney. “Everyone has been real accepting, really pleasant. We have wonderful teachers.”
Spinney lives in Old Orchard Beach with his wife Beth and daughter Allie. He can be reached at 646-8331. His office is at the superintendent’s office on the Post Road.