Brent Eller planned on following in his older brother’s 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.
But a shift to the administrative side led to awards and accolades.
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.
Three Hamilton County Schools principals have won the state’s top award over the past decade, including last year’s winner, Le Andrea Ware—a 1995 UTC graduate and principal at The Howard School in Chattanooga.
“Anytime your peers select you for such an honor, when there are so many great administrators throughout Hamilton County, it is humbling,” Eller said. “It could have been any of us, to be honest with you. I don’t consider myself any different than other administrators throughout Hamilton County. We all get up and do a great job for our kids every day.”
When the 2019-2020 school year began, a big task on Eller’s plate was leading East Hamilton through the transition to separate middle and high schools. With nearly 1,700 students from sixth through 12th grades, East Hamilton is the largest of the county’s 79 schools.
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.
“As an educator, this is where we talk about being lifelong learners; this is where that comes into play and we realize that we’re in this thing together,” Eller said. “We’re in the people business—that’s what we do—so when this pandemic comes through and we can’t be around people, it throws a cog in our wheel.
“It’s 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.
With COVID-19 an ongoing problem, the Easter Sunday tornado was an added level of devastation.
“We go through the tornado, and it set us back again,” Eller said. “When you’re a teacher, you just thrive on students and that social aspect of caring for kids; when you’re not able to be together, it’s difficult. Just the care that we have for kids and not being able to be with them, it’s hard for all of us, but probably harder for the adults in the building.”
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.
“I’m 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’s what my older brother wanted to do,” he said. B
Bill Eller, a 1995 UTC graduate, is a longtime Hamilton County teacher and coach and the current boys’ basketball coach at Soddy-Daisy High School.
“He played basketball at Cleveland State and then transferred to UTC. So little brother followed in his footsteps and went to UTC,” “Little Brother” Brent said.
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’ head basketball coach.
“When you’re a basketball coach at Howard, that’s as good as it gets around here,” he said.
“I got married after my first year at Howard, and my wife (Maggie) was a teacher as well; she’s a teacher at Westview Elementary. Her parents were educators and they continued to urge both of us: ‘Get your master’s degree. That’ll be good for you. Maybe administration, instructional leadership, those kinds of things.’ So we did.”
After four years at Howard, he moved to Hixson Middle School, where he was introduced to the administrative side.
“When the principal was out of the building for meetings, he needed somebody in-house to walk the building and fix anything that went wrong,” Eller recalled. “It gave me a little taste of carrying a radio, trying to problem-solve these kinds of things.
“I’m walking down the hallway one day and our assistant principal calls me in her office and said, ‘I was just on the phone with Central Office, and they’re looking for an assistant principal to go to East Ridge Middle School. I saw you walking down the hallway and I told them, ‘I have a guy here you need to talk to.’
“That was a Monday or a Tuesday. They came out and talked to me on Thursday and, by the next Monday morning, I’m the assistant principal at East Ridge Middle School. It happened that fast.”
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’s highest honor for academic excellence.
And now East Hamilton is the home of an award-winning principal.
“I didn’t plan on going into administration, but I’m glad for the people that gave me an opportunity and encouraged me to do this,” Eller said. “I love it. I wake up every day and enjoy it with all the good and the bad that comes with it.”
