Special Education Teacher Resume Tips & Example

Special Education Teacher Resume

As a special education teacher, you’re prepared to work with students with a wide range of disabilities, including learning, mental, emotional, and physical. You’re able to adapt general education lessons to meet the special education students’ needs, and teach various subjects to students with mild to moderate disabilities.

And to land the job you want, you must create a resume that displays your training, skills, expertise, and dedication to special education and to serving children with special needs. It’s not an easy task to differentiate yourself from other candidates with a couple of pieces of paper, but with some thoughtful research and utilizing relevant resources, you can do it. When you create a resume that is uniquely yours, with just a glance, principals will be able to get an idea of who you are and the kind of teacher you’ll be. Consider these resume tips for special education teachers to develop the resume that will open doors to the job you want.

Organize your resume

Every successful teacher is expected to be organized, but this emphasis on structure and organization is perhaps even more important for special education teachers. Think of your resume as a tool for exhibiting your organizational skills, and focus on presenting all the information in a clear way that makes sense.

Start with a summary

To set your resume apart from the rest of the stack, consider starting it with a professional summary: a brief section that quickly shows your strengths and proficiencies as a special education teacher.

Consider using key words and phrases when putting together your summary. Refer to special education teacher job descriptions to ensure that you’re including essential information that pertains to your abilities. You can use this as a way to identify the strengths that you would like to highlight the most and are most applicable to the job you are applying for.

Reveal your credentials

To work as a special education teacher, you’re required to have specific educational and professional credentials, such as a college degree in the field and a teaching certificate for the state in which you plan to teach. Make sure you include a prominent section for “education” on your resume, where you can feature your educational background, including the institution and its location, the degree you earned, and the year you earned it. This section is also the place to include your certification level and in which states you are certified to teach.

Demonstrate your teaching experience

If you have already worked as a teacher, it’s essential to share that information with potential new employers. But avoid the temptation to simply list your duties; instead, focus on sharing your accomplishments. Even if you haven’t worked as a full-time teacher, you can show your experience as a student-teacher or intern teacher in this way. For instance, rather than saying you taught students with autism and other spectrum disorders, you could say that you designed a custom curriculum for students with autism in grades three through six, and you worked with parents and other teachers to create customized IEPs, to ensure that these students would receive the necessary support to fulfill their educational potential.

Highlight other relevant experience

If you’ve worked at a summer camp for children, or a special needs aide at a preschool, you should certainly include those jobs on your resume. Even if you’ve worked in retail or at restaurants, consider framing that experience in a way that shows your accomplishments and skills that will translate well to teaching, like communication abilities and a willingness to go above and beyond your duties.

Show your personality

Special ed teachers need an extra level of compassion and patience to work effectively with children who have disabilities. Look for ways to include evidence that you have the compassionate approach to be an effective special ed teacher. For instance, you may want to list a few of your “soft skills” or characteristics in your summary section, as included in the sample resume below.

Edit carefully

Yes, everyone makes mistakes, but not on a resume. Your resume is such an important document – demonstrating on paper your value as a teacher and serving as a personal marketing tool – that it deserves careful editing, over and over again. If possible, ask another teacher or trusted friend to look over it as well, to check for any errors you might have missed. As school principals look for ways to narrow down candidates, weeding out any resumes that contain errors is an easy first step. So, make sure yours doesn’t have any.

Add a personal cover letter or email.

Finally, make your resume stand out by writing a cover letter (or email, if you’re submitting electronically) tailored to the specific position. In that letter, you might address why you’re particularly interested in the school you’re applying to and any skills or experience that make you a good fit. For instance, if you grew up with a sibling with special needs and that experience led you to choose this career, share that information.

Special Education Resume Example

For more help, take a look at this sample resume for a special education teacher.

If you are a special education teacher looking to put your new resume to use, then make sure to check out all of our current openings. Search for opportunities by location and apply directly through the Soliant Special Education Teacher jobs page.