Central Administration

As Chief Operating Officer and Deputy District Superintendent, Dr. Amy Albers oversees day-to-day administrative operations of Rockland BOCES, including business and finance, human resources, management services, facilities and transportation. Working across all BOCES divisions and the Executive Leadership Team, Amy works collaboratively to build and fortify BOCES programs and services that support local districts.

As Rockland BOCES Assistant Superintendent for Student Services (2009-2021), Dr. Albers led the development of innovative BOCES programming options and community-focused solutions to address special education needs across Rockland County’s component school districts. She was an architect of Rockland County’s system of care and played an integral role in creating the Partnership for Safe and Healthy Youth, a multi-agency collaborative to enhance services for at-risk teens and their families. She provided management oversight of more than 600 staff and dozens of specialized school programs for more than 800 students facing learning challenges, including autism, cognitive disabilities, medical fragility and developmental disabilities.

A passionate advocate for children has been a hallmark of Dr. Albers’ professional journey. As a special education consultant, she chaired school district-based committees, assessed programs and led quality assurance initiatives. She served as Principal of the Jesse J. Kaplan School (1993-1996) and was an adjunct professor at Columbia University, National Training Coordinator of programs for children with special needs and a special education teacher.

Dr. Albers’ experience in public education is wide-ranging, comprehensive and intensive: In leadership roles, extensive leadership experience in virtually every area of special education and participation in dozens of partnerships, programs and new ways of facilitating learning and success at the primary and secondary levels.

From classroom teacher to special education consultant to school administrator, Dr. Albers has developed innovative programs that support students in every district in Rockland County. This knowledge and experience has allowed her to gain a deep appreciation of the differences and commonalities across our diverse school communities. Dr. Albers is dedicated to making decisions that are guided by data, informed by vision and responsive to the needs of our learners.

A skilled pedagogical leader with more than three decades of public education experience, Dr. Albers sets programmatic and operational direction and ensures the high quality of our services and programs – making certain that Rockland BOCES is best serving students, families and educators from across our region and beyond.

Dr. Albers is a lifetime resident of Rockland County.  

As District Superintendent, Christopher D'Ambrese serves as the local representative of the New York State Commissioner of Education by assisting local school districts in the implementation of the New York State Education Law and the interpretation of the Commissioner’s Regulations and rules of the Board of Regents.

Unique to Rockland BOCES, a collaborative leadership model allows the District Superintendent and the Chief Operating Officer to work jointly in assuring that programs and services provided by the BOCES agency are of outstanding quality and meet student and family, as well as school district needs.  Additionally, the District Superintendent assists component school districts in the recruitment and selection of school superintendents, as needed. The District Superintendent is accountable to the nine-member Rockland BOCES Board of Education. 

Mr. D'Ambrese's three-decades-long career in public schools began as a special education teacher in the Onteora Central School District in Ulster County. After moving on to the Highland Central School District, he served the dual role of special education teacher and department chair at Highland High School. 

After a decade at Highland High School, Mr. D'Ambrese moved to Orange-Ulster BOCES, where he supervised the incarcerated education program within Orange County Jail, the adult career training/continuing education programs, adult ESL-GED programs and worked directly with the Orange County One-Stop and Orange Community College in the development of literacy and employment/training opportunities for the adult residents of Orange County. 

In 2015, Mr. D'Ambrese became the Director of Adult Education at Rockland BOCES, where he led the Adult Education Division and worked closely with Rockland Community College in providing literacy, employment and post-secondary opportunities to adult residents of Rockland County.

In 2019, Chris was elevated to Executive Director of Adult Education, adding supervision of Hudson-Valley P-TECH, Regional Night High School and Rockland Works (formerly the Rockland County Career Center).