VP of Special Ed
CARMEN ALVAREZ is vice president for special education. Since her election to the post in 1990, she has been a key voice in the UFT’s efforts to improve education for children with disabilities.
She has been a member of the NYSUT board of directors since 1995 and has served on the AFT Special Education Committee. She works closely with the State Education Department and the New York City Department of Education to develop policies that address local, state and national special education issues.
Since her days as a resource room teacher at PS 165 and 121 in Manhattan from 1977 through 1983 — she also directed a resource room program for Bank Street College in the early 1980s — Carmen has worked to improve the education of disabled youngsters. One of her major successes was pressing the DOE to computerize the Individualized Education Program (IEP) for each student in special ed. Another was the Consultant Teacher Initiative, a program which brings experienced special ed teachers into classrooms to support disabled students and to help expand the skills of colleagues.
Carmen has been a proponent of Superstart Plus, a new concept of educating preschool children with disabilities, with non-disabled peers. This concept, through collaboration with the DOE and the UFT, evolved into The Least Restrictive Environment Initiative, which expanded inclusionary programs across all grade levels. The positive practices that came out of this citywide initiative became the centerpiece of the DOE’s New Continuum of Special Education Services, which expanded options to serve students with disabilities in general education with a wider array of supports.
A New Yorker of Puerto Rican descent, Carmen has raised one son and has been active in both her child’s school and in the community. As PTA president in the 1980s, she recognized early the value of computers and fought alongside teachers and parents to get a computer program for her son’s school. She also served as a school board member in Manhattan from 1983 to 1989.
