It was easy to overlook Elle Hill and Breyana Harris at last month’s ribbon-cutting for the Newport News Early Childhood Development Center. In a room filled with dignitaries from Virginia Peninsula Community College, the Peake Childhood Center and the City of Newport News, they sat in the last row.
However, the ceremony was as much about them as it was about others. Hill and Harris are among those enrolled in VPCC’s Center for Excellence in Early Childhood Development, which is a collaboration with the College, Peake and Newport News that will provide a new training facility for prospective teachers. Those teachers will be carrying out the plans envisioned and developed by all three entities.
“I felt an incredible sense of pride being able to be at that event,” Hill said. “The building was made for all students, but when I was at that (event), I felt like it was personally made for me and my other classmates.”
She and Harris became emotional during the speeches.
“We weren’t crying, but we were definitely smiling and giddy and looking at each other,” Hill said. “We were very excited and very happy and very prideful of the new building.”
Harris, too, felt a sense of pride.
“I was really happy. I was like, ‘Yeah, that’s us,’” she said.
Both Hill, a 2024 graduate of Poquoson High School, and Harris, a 2024 graduate of Grafton, have wanted to be teachers for as long as they can remember.
“Kids say all the time they want to be a teacher, and for me, it just stuck,” Hill said.
She tried theater, thinking she might want to work behind the scenes, but that didn’t work out.
“I was just drawn back to teaching when it was time to actually pick colleges,” she said.
Growing up, Harris would always play teacher, but it really came into focus in high school when she was involved in a program at New Horizons and enrolled in a class called Virginia’s Teachers for Tomorrow.
“I’ve just always wanted to be one,” she said.
The Center is at 1500 Jefferson Ave. in southeast Newport News and is being run by the Peake Center. It can accommodate 200 children, from the ages of six weeks to five years. When it comes time for the VPCC students to have internships or do their student teaching, the Peake Center will provide that. There will be no need to travel to other schools. All the learning can be done in one building. In fact, the VPCC students can take all their required classes, including general education, at the Center. There is no need for them to drive from the Hampton Campus to the Peake Center and then to another school for student teaching. It’s all at one location.
“I am very grateful for it, and I am really appreciative of the building as a whole. It's a beautiful building,” Hill said. “And I think there's a greater purpose to further childcare, which is always something that I love.”
She added it provides another safe space for children.
During the ceremony, Harris also was thinking of the children.
“They need that education and guidance. Some parents don’t know how to do it or know what to do,” she said.
A number of those children were on hand for the event, and even performed a song, which captured the hearts of those in attendance.
“They were very happy and smiling and enjoying themselves,” Harris said. “It was really beautiful.”
Dr. Jennifer Parish, executive director of the Peake Childhood Center, said at the ribbon-cutting one of the challenges she faces is finding qualified staff, and this is where the partnership with VPCC comes into play.
“The students taking early childhood classes in this building will complete observations and internships in our classrooms, making this a lab school,” she said. “It is our hope we will hire many of those students to work in our classrooms.”
At the Center, VPCC has two classrooms (which can be converted into one large one), two offices, a student workroom and a room shared with the Peake Center.
What’s important to Hill is it’s their space, which can they decorate as they wish and which can accommodate all their needs. They have much more room for the children’s books needed for class. In the fall semester, Early Childhood classes were held in the Hampton III Building on the Hampton Campus. If Hill and her classmates needed books, they might have to go from place to place to find them.
The Hampton III Building could be crowded with other students, including those in the Nursing and Fire Science programs, who were dressed in scrubs or EMT gear.
“I felt kind of out of place because I would show up in my normal clothes,” she said.
No need to feel that way anymore. They now have a place to call their own.
For more information on the College, visit www.vpcc.edu.