Special Education Teacher resume example

• Entry level

  Licensed special education teacher with a cross-categorical endorsement and two student teaching placements, one in a co-taught fifth-grade math class and one in a self-contained autism classroom. Drafted present levels and goals for six practice IEPs under supervision and collected daily behavior data. Trained in CPI and ready to case-manage a resource caseload.

• Mid level

  Special education teacher with seven years in middle school resource and co-taught classes, case-managing 15 to 18 IEPs each year. Finished every annual review and reevaluation on time for five straight years. Delivers Wilson-based reading intervention, leads FBAs with the school psychologist and trains two paraprofessionals on each student's accommodations and behavior plan.

• Senior

  Special education teacher and department lead with fifteen years across therapeutic day, self-contained and inclusion settings for students ages 5 to 21. Coaches eight case managers on IEP writing, ran the district's move to a new IEP system and chairs the building's problem-solving team. Known for clear goals, honest progress reports and calm meetings with families.

• Never stating the setting you teach in

  Fix: Resource room, co-taught inclusion, self-contained, life skills and therapeutic day school are very different jobs. Put the setting in the job line along with grades, caseload and service minutes, for example "Resource and co-teach, grades 6-8, 17 IEPs." A director hiring for a self-contained room needs to see it before reading further.

• Listing compliance with no proof

  Fix: "Wrote IEPs" is expected. Show you do it well and on time: the share of annual reviews and reevaluations finished before deadline, how many meetings you led, and whether a state or district audit found problems in your files. Compliance numbers tell a director you will not create legal risk for the district.

• Burying your instruction under paperwork

  Fix: Many special education resumes read like case management only. Add bullets about what you taught and how students grew: a reading intervention you ran, the goals met, or minutes moved into general education. Name programs such as Wilson Reading System, S.P.I.R.E. or Read Naturally when you used them with fidelity.

• Leaving out the adults you lead and coordinate

  Fix: Special educators often direct paraprofessionals and coordinate speech, occupational therapy, social work and outside agencies. Say how many paraprofessionals you scheduled and trained, which related service providers you planned with, and how you kept general education co-teachers on the same accommodations.

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• Case-managed 17 IEPs for students in grades 6-8 and completed 100 percent of annual reviews and reevaluations before deadline for 5 years.
• Drafted measurable reading and math goals for 14 students, with 11 meeting or exceeding their annual goals by the spring progress report.
• Co-taught 3 inclusion math sections of 26 students with a general education teacher, raising the pass rate for students with IEPs from 58 to 81 percent.
• Assessed 22 students a year with the Woodcock-Johnson IV Tests of Achievement and wrote the academic sections of their evaluation reports.
• De-escalated crisis situations using CPI techniques, helping the classroom go from 9 physical restraints in one year to 2 the next.
• Coordinated schedules for 4 paraprofessionals and 3 related service providers so every student received the service minutes in the IEP.
• Delivered Wilson Reading System lessons to 6 students, who gained an average of 1.4 grade levels in decoding over one year.
• Led 12 functional behavior assessments with the school psychologist and wrote behavior plans that cut referrals for those students by half.
• Moved 5 students to more time in general education after their teams reviewed progress data at annual meetings.
• Built transition plans for 10 juniors and seniors, linking each to job sampling or a referral to the state vocational rehabilitation agency.

• Mirror the setting and caseload in the posting

  A posting for a self-contained autism room and one for a high school resource caseload need different first lines. Put the matching setting in your headline, lead with the role closest to it and use the posting's own terms, such as cross-categorical, life skills or co-teach. Do not claim a setting you have only visited. Tailor your resume to a special education posting

• Use the cover letter to show how you run an IEP meeting

  Directors want to know how families experience you. In the letter, describe briefly how you prepare a family before an annual review, keep the meeting on the student's progress and follow up afterward. Add your compliance record in one sentence and name the setting you are best at, so the director can place you on the right team. Write a special education cover letter

• Practice the scenario questions

  Special education panels often ask scenario questions: a parent who disagrees with a goal, a general education teacher who skips accommodations, a student who runs from class, a deadline you are about to miss. Prepare a short answer for each that names the law or process, the people you would bring in and how you would document it. Practice special education interview questions

• Pull the exact program names from postings

  Districts list the tools they use: an IEP software name, a reading program, a behavior system, a crisis training. Run three or four local postings through a skills extractor and note which ones repeat. Add the ones you have truly used to your skills section, and plan training for the one that keeps coming up and you lack. Pull skills from special education postings