A career change from being a social worker to becoming a teacher changed Michelle Roche’s life. Now the fourth grade teacher at St. Raphael School in Rockville hopes her classroom lessons help her students to become good people and make the world a better place.
“I really love my children,” Roche said. As a Catholic school teacher, she said it’s “great to teach them about faith… You can teach them how to be good people,” she said.
On April 17, all 330 students at St. Raphael School, including the 22 children in Roche’s fourth grade class, stood in the school’s courtyard and cheered for Roche, who was named a 2024 Golden Apple Award winning teacher. Students waved gold-colored pom-poms, and got to eat apple-shaped cookies with gold frosting, and then the fourth graders posed for a group photo with their teacher, as some held a large banner celebrating her award.
Vicky McCann, the assistant superintendent for advancement and marketing in the Catholic Schools Office of The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, announced the honor moments earlier after morning prayer in St. Raphael Church.
The Golden Apple teachers, who will be honored at a May 16 dinner, will each receive a golden apple and a monetary award of $5,000 from the Donahue Family Foundation, which sponsors the annual award for teaching excellence and dedication to Catholic education.
That morning, Father Michael Salah, St. Raphael’s pastor, in an interview praised Roche, saying, “She lives her faith. She’s teaching something she lives. The kids see that.”
In a letter nominating her for the award, the priest noted that Roche serves as a Eucharistic minister at St. Raphael and at her home parish, Our Lady of the Presentation in Poolesville, and her students are always prepared to participate in the weekly school Masses and respond to questions that the parish’s priests pose in their homilies.
In her letter nominating Roche for the Golden Apple Award, Teri Dwyer, the founding principal of St. Raphael School, called her “a shining star.”
The principal noted Roche’s creative approach to teaching, incorporating music in the classroom, and having a unit on the Middle Ages, “where students dress as a character from medieval times, design their personal crest and share a feast in a castle.”
Dwyer pointed out how the teacher hosts a homework club after school, and she added, “Michelle is determined to offer extra care for struggling students, enrich students who find learning comes easy, and meet everyone in between.”
And she praised Roche as a role model in faith for her students who leads them in praying the rosary, joins them in visiting Raphael House for the frail elderly next-door to the school, and organizes meals for the homeless. “Her faith is a faith in action,” Dwyer said.
In an interview, Dwyer said, “Michelle has an ability to share herself… and she invites students to share their stories. She has high expectations and works tirelessly to help kids meet them.”
Also nominating Roche for the Golden Apple Award was Molly Nagel, a resource teacher at St. Raphael School, who noted, “Not only have my three kids had the privilege of having her as their teacher, but I have also had the privilege to be her colleague and friend for several years.”
Nagel said Roche’s “dedication to her school family and her teaching is unparalleled,” noting how she is often the first person to arrive at the school in the morning and the last one to leave in the evening, with students in her class beginning and ending their school days in prayer. Roche, she said, can be seen running around outside with her class at recess, and attending their sports games on weekend. “She is like a second mother to many fourth graders,” she said.
For her part, Roche said she was shocked at receiving the award and overwhelmed at how the school celebrated her and her honor. Her husband Bill Roche joined the celebration.
Michelle Roche, a native Washingtonian, has a bachelor’s degree in social sciences from Salisbury University in Maryland and worked for 15 years in Family Court Social Services for the District of Columbia Courts system. During that time, she earned a master’s degree in nonprofit organizational management from the University of Maryland.
After the birth of her twins, she stayed home to raise her three daughters and later received her elementary education certification and also training in a teaching approach to help struggling readers, including students with dyslexia.
“I used to be a social worker,” she said in an interview, noting how her pastor then at Our Lady of the Presentation, Father David Brault, invited her to teach religious education classes at the parish. From 2002 to 2005, she served as a substitute teacher for Montgomery County public schools, and taught reading intervention part-time to kindergarten students and first and second graders at Travilah Elementary School in North Potomac from 2008 to 2010.
“I brought the skills that I developed as a public school teacher and as a CCD teacher in my parish to my career as a Catholic school teacher,” wrote Roche in a reflection on her life as a teacher, emphasizing the importance of breaking down the components of a subject to make it more understandable, and offering students encouragement.
From 2005 to 2007, Roche was an instructional assistant for kindergarten students and first and second graders at Mary of Nazareth Catholic School in Darnestown. From 2010 to 2014, she taught at St. Augustine Catholic School in Washington, D.C., before joining the staff of St. Raphael School, where she has taught for the past 10 years.
In an interview, Roche noted that she always liked being with children, and enjoys seeing them excited about a topic and witnessing the spark of learning in them. “Everybody learns differently,” she said. “…At the end of the year, I’m hoping my children will leave the classroom as lifelong learners.”
Roche in her reflection on being a Catholic school teacher emphasized how she takes pride in her previous students’ accomplishments, especially in “having contributed to their success as the caring, successful, intelligent, moral and confident people they have become.”
