Laura Wilk, M.Ed.

Laura Wilk, M.Ed., is a special education administrator and regulatory compliance specialist with more than 16 years of experience spanning state policy development, district level administration of high-risk cases, and classroom instruction. She evaluates FAPE sufficiency, IEP adequacy, and Section 504 implementation, and provides objective, evidence-based case analysis and expert consultation for school districts, legal counsel, insurers, and educational institutions nationwide.

At the state level, Ms. Wilk served as State Section 504 Coordinator for the Texas Education Agency, where she authored the agency's Technical Assistance: Section 504 Guide, the state's primary guidance document for local educational agencies on Section 504 implementation. In that role she developed statewide compliance guidance reaching more than seven million students, worked with the twenty regional education service centers, coordinated with the federal Office for Civil Rights, administered the Inclusion in Texas federal grant, and contributed to statewide initiatives on multi-tiered systems of support and behavior intervention frameworks.

At the district level, Ms. Wilk has worked from the classroom to the central office. As Administrative Supervisor of Critical Cases for Austin ISD, she managed the district's response to written state complaints filed with the Texas Education Agency, including the underlying investigations, the district's documentary response, and the corrective action plans issued following findings of noncompliance. She directed the review and remediation strategy for the district's highest-risk special education cases. Previously, as the district's Section 504 Compliance Coordinator, she oversaw Section 504 implementation across 125 campuses and more than 300 campus coordinators and supported the district through a federal Office for Civil Rights audit. Earlier in her career she spent nine years at Plano ISD as a special education teacher, Academic Specialist for Section 504, and special education team lead, giving her direct experience with the evaluation, eligibility, IEP development, and placement processes she now examines as an expert.

Ms. Wilk most recently served as a fractional Director of Special Education Operations for assigned Texas districts, where she reviews campus special education portfolios and evaluates whether IEP goals are measurable, individualized, and consistent with state and federal requirements.

Her experience also includes the instructional materials industry. As an account executive for intervention at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, she worked with Texas districts on evidence-based intervention programs and led professional development on diagnostic assessment and instructional differentiation, giving her working knowledge of how commercial curriculum, intervention, and assessment systems generate the student performance data that later appears in the record.

Ms. Wilk is a co-founder of IEP Sensei, where she and her team mapped federal IDEA and Section 504 requirements across U.S. educational jurisdictions to support jurisdiction-specific analysis of IEP documentation. Her expert opinions are formed independently through direct review of case records and are not derived from any proprietary software.

She has presented at Texas state education conferences and at the London International Conference on Education at the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, and has appeared as a guest subject matter expert on IEP development for students with autism. Ms. Wilk holds an M.Ed. in Special Education from the University of Texas of the Permian Basin and Texas certifications in Special Education PK-12, Core Subjects 4-8, History 8-12, Physical Education PK-12, and Generalist EC-4.