Christine Cruz’s Biography

Christine Cruz is a pediatric speech-language pathologist who works for the New York City Department of Education (DOE) in a self-contained, special education school in the Bronx. Her caseload includes students with developmental language disorders, multiple disabilities and autism. She specializes in the use of augmentative and alternative communication, allowing for students who are nonverbal and/or unintelligible to express themselves using symbols or voice output devices. Her primary mission is to provide each student with the opportunity to participate and communicate functionally within their school and home environments.

In her spare time, Christine volunteers for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's political campaign, through which she helped launch Homework Helpers, a program designed to assist families of New York's 14th congressional district who are struggling with classroom challenges brought about by COVID-19. For the first eight months of the program, she acted as a coach for other volunteers and as program manager.

Christine obtained her B.A. from Vassar College and her M.S. from Columbia University's Teachers College. She enjoys taking salsa classes, hiking and ceramics. Christine was appointed to Community Board 11 in 2021 by Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr.