When Taylor Gerth was 4 years old and posed for a photo on her first day of pre-kindergarten at Little Flower School in Bethesda, Maryland in 2007, her mischievous smile and determined pose seemed to indicate that she was ready to start her educational journey.
“I remember just being so excited to go to school every day,” she said in a recent interview.
Recalling a special milestone at Little Flower school, she added, “Sister Ritamary taught me how to read. She was my first grade teacher.”
After graduating from Little Flower School in 2017, Gerth went on to graduate from Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School in Washington, D.C., in 2021. She earned a bachelor of arts degree in elementary education from Clemson University in South Carolina four years later, and this spring, she earned a masters of reading education degree from Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College in Nashville.
And in August, she came back to Little Flower School as the new first grade teacher at her alma mater, back to where it all began.
“It’s so nice to be home,” she said.
Taylor Gerth, who is now 23 years old, texted her first grade teacher, Sister Ritamary Mayan, to tell her that she would be continuing in her footsteps at Little Flower School. This year, Sister Ritamary is marking her 70th anniversary as a member of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary of Scranton, Pennsylvania. Gerth noted that she is a friend on Facebook with the teacher who taught her to read.
When she was hired to return to Little Flower School as the new first grade teacher, Gerth also contacted her former principal there, Sister Rosemaron Rynn, an Immaculate Heart of Mary sister who served as the principal of Little Flower School from 1994-2018 and lives at the convent there in her retirement. Gerth said Sister Rosemaron’s response was: “We were hoping that would be the case!”
Little Flower’s current principal, Meredith Mirkow, said having Gerth return to teach there “is amazing. It really couldn’t make me happier.” She added, “It’s nice to see people come back home here, and they have so much to contribute to the community.”
Mirkow, in her second year leading the school, earlier taught middle school English and religion and served as the assistant principal there, and she was a school parent when Gerth was a student at Little Flower. She noted that several teachers there have children who are current students or graduates of the school. “It’s a big family environment,” she said.
Taylor Gerth noted that her mom, Heather Gerth, is a graduate of Georgetown Visitation, and her dad, Tom Gerth, is a graduate of Georgetown Preparatory School in North Bethesda. Her younger sister Darby – who is now an accounting major at Auburn University in Alabama – graduated from Little Flower School in 2019 and later also graduated from Georgetown Visitation, as did another younger sister, Ellery, who went to Little Flower School and then graduated from Holy Trinity School in Georgetown and is now attending the University of Tennessee.
“We’re a ‘Catholic mafia’ type of family,” she joked.
Becoming a teacher was a natural choice for Taylor Gerth, who said, “It’s always been what I wanted to do.”
Plus, several members of her family are educators. Her grandmother, Dr. Joanne Barrett, was a middle school teacher at Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart in Bethesda and is now part of the faculty at the University of Florida in their computer science program.
Taylor Gerth’s uncle, Dan Walder, is the principal of Diamond Elementary School in Gaithersburg and earlier served in that role at Bannockburn Elementary School in Bethesda. Her aunt Courtney Walder earlier taught kindergarten at Stone Ridge and is now a first grade teacher at Lakewood Elementary School in Rockville.
“I’m surrounded,” Taylor Gerth said, smiling.
And becoming a Catholic school teacher also came naturally to her.
“I loved being in a faith-based community growing up. A very helpful way of supporting students was being able to lean on your faith. There’s a lot of joy in a Catholic school. I feel that’s a hallmark of what those schools are like. I saw that at Visitation, and I saw that at Little Flower,” she said.
At Little Flower Parish and School, Taylor Gerth was an altar server as a student. That program there has been led for many years by Father George Stuart, a priest in residence at Little Flower Parish who serves as the episcopal vicar for Canonical Services and vice chancellor for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington.
“It was one of the first times I felt like I had a leadership role as a kid,” she said.
In 2016, Taylor Gerth was one of the altar servers at the opening Catholic schools Mass for the Archdiocese of Washington at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, and 10 years later, she attended the Mass as a new teacher with her colleagues from Little Flower and with teachers and staff from across the area.
Now she will be teaching at Little Flower School with fellow teachers including Christine Matala, who was her kindergarten teacher, and Michael Chiazze, the fourth grade English language arts and religion teacher who was her fifth grade teacher.
Her former teachers who are now her colleagues have accepted her as an adult and an educator, she said.
Reflecting on the steps of her educational journey after Little Flower School, Taylor Gerth said she appreciated the Salesian spirituality emphasized at Georgetown Visitation, especially the “little virtue” of gentleness. “Nothing is as strong as gentleness,” she said, noting the importance of teachers treating their students with compassion.
Praising her experience at Clemson University, she said, “Clemson let me go into the classroom my first semester there – I got to confirm this is what I wanted to do.” During her years there, she did student teaching at elementary schools in South Carolina, and in the spring of 2025, she served as a substitute second grade teacher at Little Flower School.
When she was deciding on a master’s degree program, Taylor Gerth said she thought about how reading brought her the most joy while she was growing up, “and how proud I was to learn,” so she went to Vanderbilt University to earn a master’s degree in reading education. She said that university provided a strong background for her in research and curriculum aimed at effective practices in teaching reading and in supporting struggling readers.
“Doing the program at Vanderbilt really solidified my decision to go into first grade,” she said.
Taylor Gerth will be teaching the core subjects – math, English language arts, social studies and science – to the 16 children in her first grade class at Little Flower School. The other section of first grade there is being taught by Brooke Houghton.
Along with a prominent display of books in her classroom, Taylor Gerth has a Promethean board – a large interactive touchscreen display – connected to her laptop.
Describing a key goal that she has for her first graders, she said, “I want them to find joy in reading.”
The new teacher, back home at Little Flower School, added, “It’s such a gift to be able to watch them learn such an important skill. You never see as much growth as you do in first grade.”
Christine Matala, now in her 19th year at Little Flower School, stepped from her kindergarten classroom and was asked what Taylor Gerth was like as a student and what she’ll be like as a teacher.
“She was the sweetest, kindest little girl, and she’s still the sweetest, kindest little teacher,” Matala said, smiling. “She’s going to be a great addition to our Little Flower family.”
The veteran kindergarten teacher said, “It’s really such a testament to the community we’ve tried to build here at Little Flower, for a love of learning. To have a student want to come back to Little Flower is just a testament to what a special place this is.”
And she added, “It’s so nice to have her back!”
