Renee Warrow and Jean Oligny-Warrow, Proud Mother
Personal Life: I was born and raised in New York State. After completing my undergraduate degree, I moved to Maine in the summer of 1980. In 1990, I married Tim Warrow and in 1992, our daughter, Renée Christine, was born. She graduated from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, spring 2014, with a degree in Chemical Engineering. She is currently working as a Chemical Engineer. Tim and I are such proud parents.
One of our favorite activities all the while Renée was growing up at home was to read together. We liked to be creative about our reading environment - some of our more creative were in forts (inside and outside the house), in tents, hammocks, playhouses, beaches, parks, campgrounds, tucked quietly in the woods on a swing - or our most creative - inside a quinzee snow hut we had built - we brought in our sleds to sit on, drank hot cocoa and read until we got too cold!
Education: I graduated from the College of St. Rose in 1980 with a Bachelor's in Special Education. I earned my Master's in Exceptionality in 1991 through the University of Southern Maine.
Professional Life: I moved to Maine following graduation from the College of St. Rose. My first job in Maine was at Agassiz Village on Thompson Lake, in Poland, Maine during the summer as a camp counselor. I was hired as a special education teacher for students with multiple disabilities at Madison Street School through Pathways, Inc. in Auburn, Maine and worked there for 4 years.
In the fall of 1984, I was hired as a special education teacher at the Poland Community School. My classroom was the first in the surrounding area that serviced students with multiple disabilities and/or mental retardation (the legal designation at that time) in the public school. It was a self-contained classroom.
Seven years later, our classrooms were no longer designated by disability, and all of the students were integrated. At that time, I began team teaching in a special education resource room. In 2009-2010 school year, Joanne Cook and I founded the Literacy Lab at PCS. This began as a response to the needs of all of our students, not only those in special education, creating an alternative literacy program where students are selected based on their literacy programming needs. The Literacy Lab is an alternate general education setting, as well as a special education program. It has had many reiterations over the years in programming and partnerships.
In addition, I am the Special Education Team Leader at PCS. I am a currently on the Response to Intervention Team, Student Support Team, and am a Mentor.