Like mother, like daughter at St. Mark School in Catonsville

CATONSVILLE – It isn’t a secret that the student body at St. Mark School in Catonsville is a family affair, with classrooms filled with siblings and cousins, as well as faculty members’ children, nieces and nephews. 

Having four teams of mothers and daughters working at the school, however, is a bit unusual. 

“I think it is amazing to see and such a blessing to have,” Terry Ferro, St. Mark’s principal, said of the teams. “They were called to be here together.” 

Robin and Megan Workman were the first to start the trend, when Robin officially joined the staff in 2019 after volunteering in her daughter’s classroom for a year. 

“I always had that dream,” Robin said, of becoming a teacher, adding that being a substitute teacher for Baltimore County Schools “made it easy” for her to stay home with her family when Megan was young. With Megan’s encouragement, Robin joined the staff at St. Mark School as a substitute teacher. She is now the receptionist and helps Megan with before- and after-school care. 

“We’ve always gotten along,” said Megan, who has been a third-grade English language arts and math teacher and a kindergarten through fifth-grade teacher in a program designed to help students with documented learning disabilities since 2011. “What has made it work so well is that we are not in the same place all the time.” 

“I stay in my lane,” said Robin, a parishioner of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Essex. 

The two commute together from their home in Essex. Mornings “can be rough,” Robin said with a laugh, as she is a morning person, while Megan is not. Their commute time will end, however, as Megan is looking to buy a home near St. Mark, where she is also a parishioner. 

“The kids think it is the coolest,” Megan said, of the mother-daughter connection. “They get the Ms. and Mrs. confused.” 

Students still get Lauren Malcotti’s and Kathleen Bourassa’s titles confused even though Kathleen changed her name when she got married in September.   

“They still all call me Ms. Malcotti,” Bourassa said with a laugh. She has been teaching third grade for eight years at St. Mark. Her mother joined her on the staff three years ago as a teacher for grades five through eight in the program for children with documented learning disabilities. 

“I never see her,” Bourassa said, of her mother. “Our classrooms are at opposite ends of the school.” 

The two try to greet each other in the morning, most recently for Malcotti to give Bourassa wedding presents mailed to her childhood home. 

“I moved out before she started here,” Bourassa said, though she lived at home her first year of teaching while her mother taught at Sacred Heart School in Glyndon. 

“We did a lot of teacher talk. My husband hated it. He had nothing to contribute,” said Malcotti, who admitted the talks indirectly introduced her to students and staff at St. Mark prior to her meeting them.  

“We do a good job. There’s my mom, and my mom, the co-worker,” Bourassa said, of keeping their work/family lives separate. “When we’re not working, we keep the work out. I like to have my mom.” 

A native of New Jersey, Keri Engel moved to Catonsville in 2011 with her husband and started teaching STEM at St. Mark School. Debbie Thore, her mother, followed her to Maryland to be near Engel and her two boys. She soon found herself working at St. Mark in various capacities, from lunch attendant to an aide. She currently works as the third- and fourth-grade instructional aide. 

“I like to be with the kids, and I like the school,” Thore said, adding that she also enjoyed having lunch with her daughter every Wednesday. 

Engel, too, enjoys having lunch with her mom. She also appreciates her mother helping with her sons during the week. 

“I run a lot of after-school clubs,” Engel said. “They’re important for kids. It’s a place where they can explore new things without pressure.” 

For Michele Taylor, a kindergarten teacher, having her daughter Emily Taylor join her this year at St. Mark was a “full-circle moment,” especially since Emily is her kindergarten classroom’s instructional aide. 

“All my children have gone here,” Michele said with pride, and the family has been longtime parishioners of St. Mark. “I feel it is a great place to be.” 

Some of Emily’s former teachers are still at St. Mark. 

“At first, it was a little weird to get used to not saying Mr. or Mrs. and use their regular names because they’re colleagues,” Emily said. “It is also weird sometimes being in the classroom. I’m in charge now but it is strange to think I was sitting in that exact seat.” 

In her 29 years at St. Mark, Michele has seen numerous changes, and Emily has even noticed changes since she was a student, especially in technology. 

“We had Chromebooks, but they do a lot more now,” Emily said. “The school is bigger now, too. My class was one of the biggest at 75 students. Now it’s in the hundreds.” 

Emily, a graduate of Community College of Baltimore County, is working toward becoming an early childhood educator. While she said her mother “has been an amazing teacher and a big inspiration,” she appreciates her mother’s openness to new ideas in the classroom. 

“It’s nice to have another person who wants to jump in and share other ideas,” Michele said. “I am always open to suggestions and ideas.” 

Ferro, herself a graduate of St. Mark and a parishioner, said to be a teacher is a “true calling” and to have four mother-daughter teams is amazing. 

“It is good for the kids to see. They all know they are related,” Ferro said. “It is good for them to see that faith-filled community.”  

Email Katie V. Jones at kjones@CatholicReview.org

Editor’s Note: This story is part of the Catholic Review’s Catholic School’s Week (Jan. 25-31) coverage. Check back at catholicreview.org/category/schools for continued coverage of the event.

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