Peggy Eller: Child Care Advocate

By Caroline Monday

The Appalachian Child Development Center has come a long way since 1988, when Peggy Eller first stepped in as director. For that matter, Eller has come a long way herself.

Peggy Eller is the director of the Appalachian Child Development Center. Photo by Marie Freeman

Eller moved to the High Country as a college student from Michigan. She completed her degrees in business education and physical education at Appalachian State. After graduating in 1978 it was her dream to teach business courses at a junior high while serving as coach for some of the school’s sports teams. “It really felt like I could do a great job,” Eller said.

Unfortunately, employers did not have as much confidence in a woman who wanted to coach sports. Eller said she did her student teaching at Blowing Rock Elementary School and, with a strong recommendation from PE coach she had worked with, applied for a teaching/coaching position there. Even with that teacher as an advocate, the principal at that time was not convinced Eller, or any woman, could coach football, one of the job’s requirements. “It just wasn’t working for a woman to teach physical education at that time,” she said. Eller said she traveled throughout the region in search of her dream job, even to Tennessee, but she had no luck finding a school that would hire a female PE coach. Thus, her first job out of college was as a chair-side assistant at a dentist’s office.

Eller’s career in early childhood started at about the same time as the birth of her oldest son. After Josh’s birth, Eller began keeping other children in her home, regularly toting the whole gang to the pool. Things snowballed from there, the recreation director at the pool offered Eller a job teaching infant swimming, which lead Eller to eventually open her own child care center.

All the while, the women of ASU were carrying out some plans of their own. A group of women stormed Chancellor Herbert Wey’s office demanding on-campus childcare.

Wey conceded, giving former dean of students Barbara Daye just two weeks to set up the Child Development Center. Daye did it, and in August of 1988, Eller came on as director. The center then only had 15 children, whose parents paid $1 a day in fees, and Eller was the only full-time staff member.

Childcare advocates couldn’t rest on their laurels for long however. In the early 1990s, a new building was slated to be built where the center stood and the center’s future was uncertain. When Eller learned the university’s construction plans, she went to Daye for advice on how to ensure the center would continue to operate. Daye told her to create a rationale, outlining her vision for the center.

In this rationale, Eller said she suggested not only the continuation of the center, but the improvement of it as well. She suggested changing the way they administered fees so that the center would not rely as much on funds from the university and offer both full-time and part-time care options. She recommended keeping the center open, even when classes weren’t in session, and hiring more full-time staff.

Eller said that within six months of appearing before the board of trustees with her plan for the center, she was able to visit the site where the Child Development Center stands today. Eller commends the university for stepping up and offering family services that few work places offer.

However, Eller said there are still battles to be won in the child care profession. “I have fought for 26 years for [child care providers] to be considered professionals instead of baby sitters,” she said. She noted that people working in her field are required by law to have more training than school teachers, yet widespread under-appreciation and underpayment is still a problem.

Eller recognizes the challenges that face women who want to pursue a career as well as raise a family and she takes a vested interest in the many women she serves through the center. Eller noted that a large portion of the families who use ASU’s childcare services are headed by young, single mothers. To these women, and others, Eller serves as a mentor and confidant.

More than one young, unmarried woman has come to Eller for advice about an unplanned pregnancy. She noted one example of such a student who was so scared about telling her parents that she was pregnant that she considered having an abortion she did not really want. Eller said she encouraged the young woman to tell her parents. She said if the woman’s parents kicked her out, as the woman feared they would, that woman could come live with Eller. The woman ended up telling her parents, keeping her baby and finishing her degree.

Eller has made a difference in the lives of countless children and families and she shows no signs of running out of steam any time soon. As she’ll readily tell you, “I love my job.” She uses that love to fuel her work. As she tells her staff, “If you have a passion for something, that will be your driving force.”