Equipped with degrees in education and criminology, Alessia DaCruz wants to make sure that early educators have all the skills they need to have a positive impact on children’s lives. 

“I’ve worked in kindergarten classrooms, and in first grade and second grade as an ESL [English as a Second Language] teacher,” DaCruz says, 

DaCruz sees early education as a chance to invest in children, build trust among parents, and, thanks to her criminal justice background, a way to prevent children from growing up and becoming involved with law enforcement. 

But now, DaCruz says, “I am focused on educating the educators.”

She has taught early educators at the Urban College of Boston where she was a professor and Program Chair of Early Childhood Education. She continues to teach English at Southern New Hampshire University. And as a member of Strategies for Children’s Advocacy Network, DaCruz is developing a course on English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) for early educators so they can build their skill in speaking English.

One source of inspiration for DaCruz is her mother. 

“I grew up with a mother who did not need to learn English, but she forced herself to. She started in an adult education program in Somerville, but that wasn’t enough. She decided to get her GED, and then she went to Bunker Hill Community College to take more ESL [English as a Second Language] courses because she wanted to excel in English. She never used English for a job. She’s always been a stay-at-home mom, but she inspired me because she started with an eighth grade education level. What she overcame is what made me want to earn two master’s degrees.”

Becoming an educator 

“I grew up in Italy for the first six years of my life. And I didn’t speak English when I moved here,” DaCruz says, recalling her childhood. “Then, whenI lived in Medford, Massachusetts, I was an ESL student for the first two years of my public school life. 

“At the time, there was not the ESL support we have now. I didn’t have an ESL teacher. I basically had immersion and very, very sweet kindergarten and first grade teachers. I had to struggle to learn English, and I was struggling a lot. But I overcame lots of barriers, and I believe it was the love of my teachers, rather than the ESL instruction.”

DaCruz went to college at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, where she also earned a master’s degree in Criminal Justice.

“I worked at a state prison. And as a criminologist, I got into education because I wanted to work with youth. I had done an internship in juvenile probation, and I felt, with all the criminology I had learned, that education was the gateway, the key to intervention.”

“Early childhood is prevention. But I was thinking about intervention, so I decided to get my teaching license, and I worked in Lawrence’s public schools as a middle school teacher for seven years because some of my students were involved with the juvenile justice system, and a lot of my students were ESL students.”

As a teacher, DaCruz dug deep. One student, who was known for giving teachers a hard time, spent a year taunting her about the fact that he’d be in her class the following year. The first day of that next school year, the student was there and made a vulgar comment to DaCruz in front of the other students. She struggled, then during lunch she decided how to respond. Back in the classroom, she thanked him for his comment and said it had shed light on her marriage. The unexpected nature of the response and the fact that she didn’t send the student to the principal created an opportunity for the two to build a more productive relationship. 

“I wasn’t going to give him what he wanted, which is arguing with him every day over his behavior,” DaCruz says. “I had this student for two years in a row, and every day, I would tell him, You need to go to Yale. Well, he never went to Yale, but he did graduate from high school, and he reached out to me and said, I’m the first person in my family to graduate from high school, and he thanked me for that. He’s definitely not perfect, but I’m very proud of him.”

Educating the educators

One project that DaCruz has worked on with Advocacy Network alumna Ana Teresa Farias is teaching ESL skills to Portuguese family child care providers in Framingham.

Now, for her Advocacy Network project, DaCruz is in the design stage of creating her ESOL class for early educators. 

“The idea is that this is what’s missing for our field in the workforce,” DaCruz says, pointing to long wait lists for existing ESL and ESOL classes. “Some family child care providers want to expand their businesses. They want to welcome English-speaking families, so they want to be able to communicate with these families.”

“The problem is that the adult education system isn’t funded as well as the early education and elementary education systems.”

To address this need, DaCruz’s class would ground early educators in the four domains of language: listening, speaking, reading and writing. The class could be run on Zoom to increase access, and it could, DaCruz says, be incorporated into the Department of Early Education and Care’s StrongStart training program or it could be offered by community colleges. 

She is focused on creating a course for beginners, but she’s aware that intermediate and advanced courses could be needed. 

“I want people to have the tools, based on what I’ve seen in my own family. It’s not just that I didn’t speak English when I came to this country. It’s that my husband, when I met him, didn’t speak English, and I have seen, now that he speaks English, how much more economically stable he is because of that. I don’t want people to let go of their roots. There’s just economic stability in knowing another language.”

Lessons in advocacy

As an Advocacy Network member, DaCruz has learned a number of lessons. 

“What I love about Strategies for Children is that they’re helping us gain the skills to say, This is my voice. We don’t have to apologize for what we feel. We have to be professional at advocacy. The encouragement to speak with authority is something that I also absolutely love about Strategies.”

Other lessons include the importance of data and personal persistence.

“When you’re advocating you need to have facts,” she says. “You can’t just have your opinion, you need to persuade with facts and opinions.”

Another lesson: “It’s easy to advocate when people agree with you.”

When they don’t agree, it’s harder. DaCruz knows, for example, that some people may consider her push for stronger English skills among early educators as racist. In fact, however, her goal is to create more opportunities for people through English classes. 

“We can’t just have early educators earn professional degrees and send them out without the English skills they need to be hired for higher level jobs.” 

DaCruz has also learned that even passionate advocacy does not produce immediate results.

“You have to have a pioneering spirit. Even though you don’t know what’s going to happen, you persevere. You’re going to hear a lot of No’s. You’re going to hear, This isn’t going to work, and I don’t think this is the biggest problem that we have right now. But if you’re passionate, and you know the reason why you’re passionate, you’re going to be able to stick with advocacy.”