Pressley, Ocasio-Cortez stress importance of early education during Roxbury visit

India Glenn

Children’s laughter and squeals filled the halls of Horizons for Homeless Children Friday morning when congresswomen Ayanna Pressley and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York’s 14th district Horizons for Homeless Children’s Roxbury location.

The congresswomen joined Mayor Michelle Wu to advocate for early childcare initiatives after meeting in a classroom with students, teachers and the press to read Ambitious Girl. The trio also met with the Parent Council, a group of parents who contribute to the organizational decision-making at Horizons, before fielding questions from the press.

“This is an incredible model, really, for the country when it comes to early education and care, ways to support the whole child, the whole teacher, and to nurture and to support families,” Pressley said, speaking to reporters after the meetings. “It is an incredible community here, really an ecosystem.”

The visit comes against the backdrop of a presidential administration that has gutted social services spending while cutting taxes on the wealthy and increasing military spending. During an Easter luncheon, held against the backdrop of his administration’s $1 billion per day war on Iran, Trump told reporters that the federal government cannot afford to fund child care. Ocasio-Cortez said the lawmakers’ appearance at Horizons underscored the importance of child care.

“I think what we’re trying to signal is that the country is better when we invest in our children and we invest in their care, and we invest in their parents, and as far as what we signal politically is pretty clear about what our agenda is — trying to make sure we invest in bringing child care to every American, healthcare to every American, making sure that the wages and the working conditions of our teachers and our educators are dignified and world class.”

Ocasio-Cortez’s visit arrives nearly two months after she co-signed Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren’s Child Care for Every Community Act, aimed at expanding access to affordable child care.

“I don’t think that the president’s administration right now is friendly to Head Start, which is why it is incumbent upon us, and why we are stepping up in this moment to make sure that we are defending the state of Massachusetts, and, frankly, the United States of America, the state of New York, in those investments,” she said.

In their remarks to reporters, the lawmakers responded to what they characterized as the Trump administration’s apparent lack of concern for children’s welfare. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s suggestion in a 2024 interview that Black children on pharmaceutical medications “get re-parented” prompted Pressley to label his comments as “reprehensible” while framing Horizons as a rejection of Kennedy’s logic.

“So often, the children that have the greatest need are provided the least amount of support,” Pressley said. “They are the least invested in…the least considered, [and] the least prioritized.”

Kennedy later said he didn’t remember making that statement, then last week apologized.

Pressley suggested Kennedy’s remarks were made from a place of ignorance.

“If he met the loving, dedicated and brilliant parents that I met here today, he would certainly not be saying something as obscene and offensive as ‘Black children need to be reparented and rehomed,” she said. 

Linda A. Mason and Roger H. Brown, co-founders of Bright Horizons, partnered with Michael R. Eisenson in 1988 to establish the child care provider. A lack of play spaces prompted early childcare workers at Horizons to open their first Boston Playspace in 1990. Today, Horizons has partnered with shelters across the state to open more than 90 shelter-based Playspaces.

The organization operates from the Edgerly Family Horizons Center completed in 2021. Holding 140,000 square feet in an urban plot between the Egleston and Jackson Square, the center houses classrooms, sensory rooms, STEM labs, libraries, and multiple outdoor Play spaces. With administrative offices mere steps from Play spaces, the architecture leans into a community-based structure. Serving 265 children ranging from 2 months to 5 years old, the early education center runs 24 classrooms with an emphasis on social-emotional learning and preparation for continued education.

Tara Spalding, Chief of Advancement and Playspace, underscored Horizons’ educational infrastructure centered around play. Drawing inspiration from Mr. Rogers, Spalding explained that “Play is the work of children…[so] our entire program is fundamentally play based.” Art supplies, beanbags, dolls, and books fill many of the classrooms. Spalding acknowledged that play is a tool not only for learning but also healing. Horizons operates from trauma-informed backgrounds, with corridors featuring art and rooms intended to help children practice their motor skills while releasing energy.

Terrell Mosley teaches Pre-K 4, the last class before enrollment in Pre-K programs.  “Children learn actively every day through play,” he told The Flipside. “As a teacher, it just speaks to my inner child…[because] not only am I playing, but I’m teaching them intentionally.” Teachers at Horizons follow the same curriculum as Boston Public Schools to facilitate students’ successful transition into the school system.

Emphasizing a two-generation model, Horizons offers services for the whole family, including parents.

“We know the parent is the expert in the child, so we partner with the parent,” Spalding explained.

Partnerships manifest in their Family Mobility Coaching, a program where parents receive mentorship in family stability, education, career development, and financial literacy. From the teaching perspective, the two-generation model manifests in the creation of community for a lifetime. Mosley described visits from former students and their families as a way of seeing the difference that Horizons makes in peoples’ lives.

Mosley said he saw the visit from the Congresswomen and mayor as an “affirmation that we are heading in the right direction as an organization.” Although the childcare industry faces threats from the federal government and current economic struggles, Mosley took comfort in the visit of the Congresswomen and Mayor. “Their presence alone was just powerful, powerful enough that it…motivated me…to keep striving and doing.”