Debbie Alvarado, B.A.
Educational Specialist
Debbie is pleased to join Turning Points Educational Solutions as an Educational Specialist. She received her BA in Education and Multi-cultural Resources from California State University, Sacramento, and earned her Multiple-Subject Teaching credential from San Francisco State University. She holds a Cross-cultural, Language, and Academic Development (CLAD) certificate, attended the Early Literacy Institute at SJUSD, and has been a member of CTA since 1994.
Her career began as a third-grade teacher in a dual-language Spanish immersion program in San Mateo, where she worked for seven years before becoming a full-time parent. Over the next 20-plus years, Debbie taught Spanish, English language arts, advanced literature analysis, and reading intervention to students from kindergarten through high school. Throughout her classroom experience, work teaching home-schooled students, college application essay-writing, and private tutoring, Debbie has utilized strategies in phonics and decoding skills, reading comprehension, reading enrichment, writing, and executive functioning. She has also developed new curriculums ensuring that executive functioning strategies are incorporated into each lesson.
One of her richest experiences comes from a two-year period during which she lived in El Salvador with her family, absorbed in the culture and developing strong connections with family members living there. While there she taught middle school language arts and gained an appreciation and respect for the challenges faced every day by people living a life so different than anything she’d personally known before.
Debbie strives to foster confidence in each student and understands that trust is the key to any successful academic relationship. She is dedicated to working toward the success of every student and is driven by her strong commitment to the healthy development of the person as a whole.
Debbie enjoys spending time with her husband and grown sons, embracing rich experiences that travel and adventure bring. She loves music, reading good books, and is always on the lookout for new, healthy recipes.