Special Education Cover Letter

You’re a certified special education teacher who can cultivate a welcoming learning environment for students with diverse needs.

To convince employers you’re the perfect person to help students reach their full potential in the classroom, you need to showcase your skills and experience as a special education teacher in a professional cover letter.

For visual learners, our Career Expert Emily shares her advice on making a teacher cover letter for any specialization in this video:

To build on Emily’s advice, follow these three tips to convey your qualifications in a captivating special education teacher cover letter:

1. Highlight special education teacher skills

Special education teachers work with students with a range of special needs and disabilities.

So a great special education teacher cover letter highlights your teaching experience, patience, and various hard and soft skills that are required to support the academic and behavioral development of students with additional needs.

To show employers you can manage a classroom with students with diverse learning styles, showcase key special education soft skills in your cover letter.

For example, empathy and problem-solving skills are vital for developing Individual Education Programs (IEPs) for students and coordinating with other professionals to ensure students receive adequate support in various aspects of their development.

Here’s an effective example of how to emphasize these skills in your cover letter:

Throughout my teaching career, I’ve been acknowledged for designing and implementing interactive lessons by employing manipulatives and IEPs to target the individual needs of special education students.

Here’s a list of key special education teacher skills to highlight in your cover letter:

• Active listening
• Creativity
• Flexibility
• Prioritization
• Interpersonal skills
• People skills 
• Attention to detail
• Collaboration
• Communication skills
• People skills
• Organizational skills
• Critical thinking
• Language skills
• Learning strategies
• Instructing individuals and groups
• Curriculum development
• Lesson planning
• Student assessment
• Knowledge of various disabilities (cognitive, social, and behavioral)
• Blackboard
• Microsoft Office (Outlook, Word, and Excel)
• Microsoft PowerPoint

2. Emphasize your attention to detail

Because you’ll be working closely with students who have special needs, you need to reassure the hiring manager you can accurately assess students’ needs and monitor their progress in the classroom.

As a special education teacher, your attention to detail will complement your knowledge of the curriculum for implementing the right instruction model and modifying lesson plans to cater to the needs of individual students.

Here’s an example of how to demonstrate your attention to detail in your cover letter:

In my current role as Special Education Teacher at XYZ Community School, I’ve contributed to the continuous improvement of four programs by analyzing students’ skills and interests and revamping programs accordingly.

3. Provide examples of your achievements (with numbers)

To show employers you’re their ideal candidate, demonstrate you not only have the right skillset to manage a classroom with diverse learning styles, but you’re also committed to fostering an enriching learning experience to help students achieve academic success.

In your cover letter, quantify your skills and experience as a special education teacher so the hiring manager can see how you’ll add value to their teaching community. Give employers an insight by providing examples of your most impressive achievements and use hard numbers to back them up.

Here’s how to include numbers in your special education teacher cover letter:

• Assessed students’ skills to determine their needs and developed effective teaching plans particular to each student’s abilities in a classroom of 20+ students
• Developed 12 educational, enrichment, and skills-based programs for diverse learners
• Evaluated 30+ students’ performance, behavior, social development, and physical health on regular basis