Dawn Billings

Dawn Billings

Dawn Billings has over 20 years of administrative experience in school and district improvement work, program management, professional development, and policy development and implementation. She has held a variety of administrative positions in both public education and business and industry. Dawn has taught at high-poverty, high-minority elementary, middle, and high schools in both urban and rural school districts.

Dawn was Race to the Top turnaround partner for nine low-performing, high-poverty, high-minority schools on the Big Island of Hawaii. During this period, all nine schools enjoyed remarkable success in improving student achievement.

Dawn was assistant superintendent for professional development for Washington State for three years. She was responsible for statewide professional development, including multiday research-based professional development conferences attended by more than 9,000 educators annually. Dawn led the design and development of Washington State Professional Development Standards, which provided the research base for Washington school and district efforts in professional development.

As director of curriculum and instruction for the Oregon Department of Education, Dawn led the development of grade-level content standards in every subject area as well as designed and provided state services to low-performing schools. She also served as director of Title II, Reading First, Reading Excellence, and Charter Schools federal grant programs. Dawn has extensive experience with state and federal legislation including providing testimony, working with legislative teams and legislative staff, budget preparation, and policy analysis.

She has a BS in education (history) and an MS in secondary education with an emphasis in curriculum and instruction.

Presentations by Dawn Billings

• Turning Around High-Poverty, High-Minority Schools
• How to Become a High-Performing School: Training Teams to Benchmark the 10 Indicators of Effectiveness
• The Essential Components of High Performance: Benchmarking Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment