Women to Watch, Social Services | Margaret Teller, The Children’s Workshop
Margaret Teller is president and CEO of The Children’s Workshop, a Cumberland-based child care and learning center with 19 locations throughout Rhode Island and Massachusetts.
But for Teller, leading a child care company was not the plan. She’d earned an undergraduate degree in economics, then an MBA. For a time, she worked in real estate development.
Her father, Dave McDonald, founded The Children’s Workshop in 1990. It was originally to provide employees of his mortgage company with a needed benefit: child care. The effort became an in-demand business in its own right, and McDonald was growing the company.
“He hooked me with the build-new-schools side of it,” laughed Teller, who has worked for her father since 2006.
‘I try to … talk to employees and understand their pain points.’
MARGARET TELLER, The Children’s Workshop, president and CEO
Build new schools they did. Now McDonald sits on the company’s board of directors. Teller heads up the business side of The Children’s Workshop, and her sister Bailey Kent shares in the company ownership. “We also call her the CEO, chief education officer,” said Teller, adding that Kent’s education background is the other piece of the company’s success.
Since Teller took the reins in 2014, the school has seen enrollment grow 20 percent, revenue 30 percent. The schools use play as a learning tool, keeping kids engaged and exploring their own interests. There are now roughly 2,000 students at The Children’s Workshop locations. A new school was just acquired in Raynham, Mass., and more are coming, said Teller.
“I try to visit on a regular basis, talk to employees and understand their pain points, and be as hands-on as I can,” she said.
Teller’s impact is felt far beyond the walls of the schools.
The Children’s Workshop Foundation, a 501(c)3 that Teller started in 2011, has a school in Pawtucket, offering affordable rates, scholarships and mentoring in tandem with Rhode Island Mentoring Partnership. All school profits go back into the community.
A Rhode Island Early Learning Council member and leader in the Rhode Island Campaign for Quality Child Care, she can also be found testifying before the state’s General Assembly on issues such as increasing Child Care Assistance Program rates to ensure parents can afford high-quality care and teachers are paid fairly.
“We want to help people on a larger scale,” said Teller.