The winner of the 2025 Holocaust Educator of the Year Award is Michelle Sutton, an English/Language Arts teacher at Harmony Middle School in the Blue Valley School District, Overland Park, KS. Michelle was recognized at the annual Academic Awards Ceremony on May 8, 2025 where she received an award of $500.
Jessica Rockhold, MCHE’s Executive Director, introduced Michelle with these words:
“[Michelle] comes from a school that developed a holistic team-teaching approach to Holocaust education and made a commitment to ensuring that every 8th grader received this education – including completion of an in-depth research project in the form of a White Rose Essay. In my many years of running the White Rose Contest, I worked each year with Michelle and with Harmony. Teachers came. Teachers left. Michelle was always there. She was the bedrock on which their school built their Holocaust education program. Their sustained excellence is a testament to Michelle and her commitment to her students, her profession, and this history.”
Since 2007, Michelle’s students have consistently been included among the finalists of the White Rose contest.
This is what she had to say about that work (edited for length):
“Each year the White Rose Society’s sacrifices motivate my students to learn that brave, defiant souls attempted to warn the masses of the truth of the Nazi ideology. This propels my students into immersive research for the White Rose Contest. Through this research and their commitment to excellence, each student completes a very well-researched and exemplary paper…. This project solidifies the need to triangulate information in an effort to validate the evidence they find and reduce the risk of bias in their writing. These lessons have provided the opportunity for students to read informational text like historians to seek answers to their questions.”
Michelle’s work to teach Holocaust history and the White Rose project is an extension of her work to create the kind of school community she hopes to see in the world at large.
“My students… want the world to be a better place – one in which they and others can feel safe, loved, and accepted. I teach in a very diverse school. Just about every religion is represented here along with numerous ethnicities. These children from divergent backgrounds sit side-by-side each day recognizing each other’s worth. They have learned that each soul has something unique and important to bring to the table, and they treat each other with respect. Watching my students work together in class discussing very difficult and sensitive topics to promote tolerance, justice, inclusion of others who may be left out or marginalized, is very rewarding and fosters hope for the future.”
If you would like to see Michelle’s acceptance speech, you may do so using the button below.
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