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Brent Eller planned on following in his older brother\u2019s footsteps when he first began attending the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. A career as a history teacher and a basketball coach seemed like a noble calling.<\/p>\nBrent Eller planned on following in his older brother\u2019s footsteps when he first began attending the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. A career as a history teacher and a basketball coach seemed like a noble calling.<\/p>\n
But a shift to the administrative side led to awards and accolades.<\/p>\n
Eller, the principal at East Hamilton School in Ooltewah and a 1998 UTC graduate, has been named the 2020 Principal of the Year for Hamilton County Schools. He is now competing for Tennessee Department of Education Principal of the Year honors.<\/p>\n
Three Hamilton County Schools principals have won the state\u2019s top award over the past decade, including last year\u2019s winner, Le Andrea Ware\u2014a 1995 UTC graduate and principal at The Howard School in Chattanooga.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnytime your peers select you for such an honor, when there are so many great administrators throughout Hamilton County, it is humbling,\u201d Eller said. \u201cIt could have been any of us, to be honest with you. I don\u2019t consider myself any different than other administrators throughout Hamilton County. We all get up and do a great job for our kids every day.\u201d<\/p>\n
When the 2019-2020 school year began, a big task on Eller\u2019s plate was leading East Hamilton through the transition to separate middle and high schools. With nearly 1,700 students from sixth through 12th<\/sup> grades, East Hamilton is the largest of the county\u2019s 79 schools.<\/p>\n Construction on the new middle school is scheduled to be completed this fall. Still, building of the physical structure took a back seat to the many challenges caused by the one-two punch of the COVID-19 pandemic and the tornado that ripped through the Chattanooga area the night of April 12.<\/p>\n \u201cAs an educator, this is where we talk about being lifelong learners; this is where that comes into play and we realize that we\u2019re in this thing together,\u201d Eller said. \u201cWe\u2019re in the people business\u2014that\u2019s what we do\u2014so when this pandemic comes through and we can\u2019t be around people, it throws a cog in our wheel.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not just about teaching what we teach but being able to relate to students and have those social opportunities. They need that. They need peer interaction; they need adult interaction. And we found out that we needed it with them as much as we possibly can.<\/p>\n With COVID-19 an ongoing problem, the Easter Sunday tornado was an added level of devastation.<\/p>\n \u201cWe go through the tornado, and it set us back again,\u201d Eller said. \u201cWhen you\u2019re a teacher, you just thrive on students and that social aspect of caring for kids; when you\u2019re not able to be together, it\u2019s difficult. Just the care that we have for kids and not being able to be with them, it\u2019s hard for all of us, but probably harder for the adults in the building.\u201d<\/p>\n Eller talked about what led him to UTC in the first place and some of his mentors, including Hugh Prevost and Valerie Rutledge. But the biggest influence was his brother, Bill.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m the second in my immediate family to graduate from college. I wanted to grow up and be a teacher and a basketball coach primarily because that\u2019s what my older brother wanted to do,\u201d he said. B<\/p>\n Bill Eller, a 1995 UTC graduate, is a longtime Hamilton County teacher and coach and the current boys\u2019 basketball coach at Soddy-Daisy High School.<\/p>\n \u201cHe played basketball at Cleveland State and then transferred to UTC. So little brother followed in his footsteps and went to UTC,\u201d \u201cLittle Brother\u201d Brent said.<\/p>\n Brent was looking for a combination teaching\/coaching position after graduation and quickly landed as a social studies teacher at Howard School of Academics and Technology. He eventually became the girls\u2019 head basketball coach.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you\u2019re a basketball coach at Howard, that\u2019s as good as it gets around here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cI got married after my first year at Howard, and my wife (Maggie) was a teacher as well; she\u2019s a teacher at Westview Elementary. Her parents were educators and they continued to urge both of us: \u2018Get your master\u2019s degree. That\u2019ll be good for you. Maybe administration, instructional leadership, those kinds of things.\u2019 So we did.\u201d<\/p>\n After four years at Howard, he moved to Hixson Middle School, where he was introduced to the administrative side.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen the principal was out of the building for meetings, he needed somebody in-house to walk the building and fix anything that went wrong,\u201d Eller recalled. \u201cIt gave me a little taste of carrying a radio, trying to problem-solve these kinds of things.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m walking down the hallway one day and our assistant principal calls me in her office and said, \u2018I was just on the phone with Central Office, and they\u2019re looking for an assistant principal to go to East Ridge Middle School. I saw you walking down the hallway and I told them, \u2018I have a guy here you need to talk to.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cThat was a Monday or a Tuesday. They came out and talked to me on Thursday and, by the next Monday morning, I\u2019m the assistant principal at East Ridge Middle School. It happened that fast.\u201d<\/p>\n After additional assistant principal roles at Brown Middle and Loftis Middle and stints as the principal at Ooltewah Middle and Lofton Middle, he took over at East Hamilton in the 2018-2019 school year. In his two years at East Hamilton, the school has earned Level 5 school designation for academic growth and has added two Future Ready Institutes. The school is a Tennessee Reward school, the state\u2019s highest honor for academic excellence.<\/p>\n And now East Hamilton is the home of an award-winning principal.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t plan on going into administration, but I\u2019m glad for the people that gave me an opportunity and encouraged me to do this,\u201d Eller said. \u201cI love it. I wake up every day and enjoy it with all the good and the bad that comes with it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Brent Eller, UTC graduate and principal at East Hamilton School, is Teacher of the Year in the school system.<\/p>\n