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Now, she is not only a full-time Spanish teacher there, but is collecting rave reviews from students and staff as well as an award for her teaching efforts.

Shapiro, 23, learned earlier this month that she is the winner of the Greenblatt Rookie Teacher of the Year award.

Since 1997, the Marian Greenblatt Education Fund has recognized a first-year teacher who is on the way to becoming a master teacher.

Shapiro will receive the award at the fifth annual Champions for Children Awards Gala, ‘‘Making a World of Difference in Our Own Backyard,” on April 26 at the Montgomery County Conference Center in North Bethesda. Ten other individuals will also be honored with educational awards.

A press release from the Montgomery County Business Roundtable, the nonprofit that sponsors the dinner, notes that the gala honors those in the education, business and volunteer communities who touch the lives of county students.

‘‘Teachers are nominated by the leadership team in their schools — so principal, vice principal and so on. One teacher is nominated from each school in Montgomery County, elementary through high school,” said Shapiro, a former resident of Aspen Hill who now lives in Bethesda.

She said she found out she had been nominated in December by Rockville High School Principal Debra S. Munk.

‘‘I was excited when I got nominated,” Shapiro said. ‘‘It was an honor.”

She said she is thrilled to be teaching at Rockville.

‘‘I was really glad to end up here because, you know, it’s a comfort zone and I knew some of the staff from when I went here,” Shapiro said. ‘‘I really like teaching here a lot, so I hope to stay here.”

She said she looks at her return to the high school as an opportunity to give back to the community that gave her so much.

‘‘My family immigrated from the Ukraine in 1989 when I was 6 years old,” Shapiro said.

‘‘We’re Jewish and at the time and still, probably, there’s a lot of anti-Semitism,” she added. ‘‘There were no opportunities there and there probably still aren’t very many. For a better life, better options, we immigrated here — my entire family. My two grandmothers came, my grandfather, my great-grandmother and my mom and dad.”

Just as her family’s move to the United States gave her the opportunity to pursue her dreams, she said, she hopes through teaching that she can better the lives of her students.

‘‘I love forming relationships with kids and helping them and, hopefully, changing some of their lives if I can,” Shapiro said.

In that same vein, she said she got involved with the school’s Skills for Success Cyber Café program in July, an after-school program that provides ninth-grade students at risk of failing with academic assistance and mentoring.

Munk said Shapiro works with the students four days a week, every week.

Along with participating in the Cyber Café program, Shapiro said she is also the sponsor of Rockville’s step team and is working on bringing a program called Challenge Day to the school, which strives to promote self-acceptance and respect for others.

‘‘For me, this award was just a confirmation that I’m in the right profession,” she said.

‘‘It was very exciting, but it definitely isn’t about the awards,” she added. ‘‘I don’t teach just to get awards.”

Munk wrote in an e-mail message that the criteria for the award were teaching ability and student relationships. She said Shapiro is a prime example of an excellent first-year teacher.

‘‘I have worked with many first-year teachers over the years, but few have impressed me as much as Olga,” Munk wrote. ‘‘When I visited her class at the time I was writing the recommendation, I asked her to step out for a few minutes so I could talk to the students about her. One boy said, ‘It is absolutely impossible to be bored in her class.’

‘‘Students went on to explain the variety of instructional activities she brings into the classroom that add high interest to her lessons,” Munk noted. ‘‘They explained that she has a way of relating to them, without being one of them.”

‘‘Olga is extremely positive,” she added. ‘‘She genuinely believes that every student can learn, and her enthusiasm is infectious.”

Munk also wrote that she is thrilled that Shapiro chose to return to Rockville High School as a teacher.

‘‘I think that Olga returning to the high school that set her on her way to becoming a teacher is extremely significant,” she said. ‘‘It fuels her commitment to Rockville High School; furthermore, she is a terrific role model for our current students.”