Just before the start of one of his classes Wednesday morning, South Elgin High School teacher Matt Erbach was startled when his classroom was suddenly filled with people he wasn’t expecting.

Members of the Golden Apple Foundation, fellow teachers and staff members, and his wife Kathryn were there to celebrate his selection as a 2025 winner of a Golden Apple Award for Excellence in Teaching.

“My watch is already pinging, telling me my heart rate’s up,” Erbach said after being bestowed with the honor and being given a gift basket from foundation President Alan Mather.

Only 11 high school teachers in the state of Illinois were selected to receive the prestigious teaching award this year out of more than 470 nominees. The winners are chosen based on a number of criteria, including lasting, positive effects on students’ lives and school communities.

Each recipient is given a $5,000 cash award and a paid spring sabbatical from Northwestern University. They also become fellows of the Golden Apple Academy of Educators.

“We hope that Matt is going to prepare the next generation of teachers to be just like him,” Mather said during his presentation.

Erbach teaches precision manufacturing and engineering, subjects that have real world applications, connect with people in other countries and will never leave a student asking, “How am I ever going to use this?” Mather said.

This is not the first time Erbach has been lauded for his work. In March, he was named Teacher of the Year by the Illinois Association for Career and Technical Education. And he’s a past recipient of the Harbor Freight Tools for Schools Prize for Teaching Excellence and an Illinois State Board of Education Award of Meritorious Service.

Among Erbach’s initiatives was an after-school project in which a team of six students designed and produced a two-part aluminum “leg bone” portion of a prosthetic leg. The effort resulted in the team taking second-place in the Phillips Machine Student Competition, beating out designs from college and university teams, Erbach said.

The work was done in conjunction with Life Changer Manufacturing, an after-school group at Chickasaw High School in Mississippi that works with high schools across the country in designing prosthetic legs made for and delivered to amputees in Latin American nations, he said.

Erbach’s work on the project dates back to when he was teaching at Streamwood High School, where he taught for 16 years before coming to South Elgin two years ago. The students he works with now not only attend South Elgin but travel from other high schools in District U-46 for his classes, he said.

One of the big benefits for those in his classes is a chance to work with state-of-the art CNC (computer numerical control) equipment with which they can design and make items out of metal. Erbach said South Elgin is the only high school in Illinois to have some of the machinery it uses.

Senior Eddie Guerrero used the equipment to make a chess set, which Erbach praised for its detail, particularly the intricate knight pieces.

“It’s been amazing working in Mr. Erbach’s classes,” he said.

What he’s enjoyed, Guerrero said, is that Erbach allows students to think up their own projects and helps them execute them. In fact, the classes have inspired Guerrero to attend Elgin Community College in the fall to study industrial manufacturing technology.

Fellow senior Soren Erikson already has an after-school job as a machinist’s assistant at Haumiller Engineering in South Elgin thanks to taking the classes he’s taken with Erbach since his freshman year.

This summer, Erikson said, he has a paid internship with Haumiller and will learn how to program its CNC machines. In the fall, like Guerrero, he will be studying manufacturing at ECC.

“From taking classes with Mr. Erbach, I saw that you could make good money and have a good career path,” Erikson said.

That’s one of his goals as a teacher, Erbach said. Educating students to realize their skills can lead to future success in the industrial arts and well-paid jobs, he said.

Right now he has 70 students are enrolled in his classes. “That’s too few. I’d like to see that double,” Erbach said.

Erbach is the second consecutive School District U-46 teacher — and the second teaching in South Elgin — to win a Golden Apple Award for Excellence in Teaching. Last year, Aimee Legatzke, a kindergarten teacher at Fox Meadow Elementary School in South Elgin, became the first teacher is district history to receive the honor.

The Golden Apple Foundation rotates which grade level of teachers it recognizes in a given year, with this year high school teachers being recognized. In the 2025-26 school year, teachers in fourth through eighth grades will be honored, followed by prekindergarten to third grade in 2026-27 and high school again in 2027-28.

Mike Danahey is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.