Dana Whitlock — Special Education Teacher and IEP Case Manager
Portland, OR
Special educator with twelve years in K-8 resource and co-taught settings, back full time since 2021 after a two-year family care break. Carries 26 IEPs with five years of clean compliance, and moved caseload students meeting annual reading goals from 54% to 81%.
Experience
Special Education Teacher and Case Manager, Grades 6-8, Mill Hollow School District · August 2021 – present
Middle school of 640 students. Resource and co-taught settings; caseload of 26 IEPs across three grades.
- Manages 26 IEPs and holds every annual and triennial meeting on time; the school has recorded no compliance findings and no due-process filings in five years.
- Raised the share of caseload students meeting annual reading goals from 54% to 81% by moving every goal to weekly curriculum-based measurement.
- Co-teaches three sections of Grade 7 math, where students with IEPs passed the state assessment at 63% against 38% in sections without co-teaching.
- Trained 34 general education teachers on accommodation delivery; documented accommodation use in walkthrough checks rose from 40% to 88%.
- Rewrote the transition plan template now used across all four middle schools in the district.
Reading Interventionist (part-time contract), Hawthorne Learning Partners · September 2020 – June 2021
- Delivered structured literacy intervention to 14 students in Grades 3 to 8 across three afternoons a week; 11 gained more than a year of reading growth in nine months.
- Wrote progress reports that districts accepted as outside evaluation evidence for six of the 14 students.
Special Education Teacher, Grades K-5, Northbrook School District · August 2012 – May 2018
- Ran a K-5 resource room serving 22 students a year; 17 students exited at least one goal area over six years.
- Built the first structured social-skills group in the district for students with autism, nine students a cycle, cutting recorded behavior incidents by 62%.
- Trained every new special education hire in the district on IEP writing and the case management system for four years running.
Education
- M.Ed. Special Education · Portland State University · September 2010 – June 2012
- B.A. Psychology · University of Oregon · September 2006 – June 2010
Skills
- Specially designed instruction: IEP writing, Structured literacy, Orton-Gillingham, Task analysis, Math intervention
- Assessment and compliance: Curriculum-based measurement, WJ-IV and KTEA-3, FBA and behavior plans, IDEA safeguards, Progress monitoring
- Collaboration: Co-teaching, Paraeducator coaching, Family conferences, Transition planning, Related-service coordination
Certifications
- Oregon Special Educator License, Generalist K-12 — Oregon Teacher Standards and Practices Commission
- Associate Level Certification — Academy of Orton-Gillingham Practitioners and Educators
- Nonviolent Crisis Intervention — Crisis Prevention Institute