Northeast Range Language Arts Educator
Dawn Merrill

I am an alumnus of Suomi College (AA in English--1999), Finlandia University (BA in Liberal Studies--2001), and the International Ataturk Alatoo University (MA in English Language and Literature—2011). My specialties are the English language, English language literature, the IBDP, and child safeguarding.

My road to teaching started about two decades ago when I moved from Minnesota to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. I was a senior lecturer at the International Ataturk Alatoo University (currently Ala-too International University), teaching language and literature courses.

In 2004, my family and I moved to Izmir, Turkey, and I spent three years teaching English language skills there in a private school setting.

In 2007, we moved back to Kyrgyzstan where I continued my Senior Lecturer position for the next nine years.

In 2016, I moved on to Oxford International School, a private school in Bishkek that offered the Cambridge and IBDP curricula. I taught the Cambridge Curriculum, IGCSE, and IBDP English courses, along with History. I was awarded “Teacher of the Term” several times at OIS and won “Teacher of the Year” in 2018.

In 2019, I was offered the Director of School and Secondary Principal roles at the school and gladly accepted them, still continuing to teach full-time.

My family and I left Bishkek in 2020 and settled in Babbitt, where from 2020-2022, I was a Reading Corps tutor at NER.

Last year I was the school’s librarian, a Special Education paraprofessional, and the Speech TA.

I am so excited to continue to get to know the students at NER and assist them on their own journeys through Language Arts.