Executive Director

Stephanie Spires has joined our administrative team as Executive Director.

Stephanie is a mother of five and a child advocate who has worked in education and nonprofit management for over 20 years. She received her B.A. and M.S. degrees from the University of Kentucky, College of Education and completed her Family Life Coach coursework at North Carolina State University.

She served on the Fayette County Public Schools Board of Education from 2017-2022. She was chair of the board from 2018-2021, leading the team through Covid and the unexpected death of the district’s Superintendent. Under her leadership, the Fayette Education Foundation was founded to provide additional resources to Fayette County Scholars. Before joining the board, she served as the Executive Director of Arbor Youth Services, Central Kentucky’s first emergency children’s shelter. In this role, she pushed city and school leaders to acknowledge and accurately count the number of homeless children in the district. She returned to Arbor Youth Services as the Interim Executive Director in 2023. Earlier this year, she joined the the team at Caritas Cares Solutions who recently built  Lexington’s only therapeutic emergency shelter for children. She has been helping them open a shelter for youth 18-26, who have aged out of foster care. Spires also previously served as the Executive Director of the Makenna Foundation, where she led the fundraising campaign for the Makenna David Pediatric Emergency Room at UK Children’s Hospital.

She has fostered and/or provided respite for over three dozen children. Stephanie leads monthly training and support groups for foster and adoptive parents in Kentucky through the Adoption Support Kentucky program at the University of Kentucky. She has testified before the Kentucky General Assembly on several issues impacting Kentucky’s children and developed a training for school board members across the state to understand how districts can support students experiencing homelessness and/or in foster care. She recently launched the “Sometimes I Yell” project to provide support to mothers of children who have special needs, behavioral challenges, and/or experience the world differently.

Welcome our new Principal!

Linda Edin, comes to KORE Academy with over 40 years of experience in education.  Her areas of strength include designing curriculum and instructional intervention for the needs of individual learners, leading teachers in professional learning communities, assessment of students, and meeting the individual needs of unique learners.

Professionally, she holds a Rank 1 in Educational Leadership and Master’s Degree from the University of Kentucky in Special Education.  Her tenure with the Fayette County Public Schools included teaching at Lansdowne Elementary, Cassidy Elementary, and Booker T. Washington Elementary as well as serving 8 years as an Elementary Principal.  After retirement from the public school system, Linda has served as an adjunct professor in the College of Education at the University of Kentucky and also spent an additional 10 years at Lexington Christian Academy as Elementary Counselor and teacher.

As always, if you have questions, please do not hesitate to contact Stephanie Spires, our Interim Executive Director for the 2025-26 school year. More announcements will be coming soon about staff, schedules, and supply lists for the upcoming year! Thank you for your patience and support as we continue to grow this summer!