One of the new faces in the Middle School this year is emotional support teacher Abby Manni. A Burgettstown High School graduate, Manni earned her degree from California University of Pennsylvania. She joined the Sto-Rox School District after graduation and spent the past three years in the district’s upper elementary school, where she taught life skills and autistic support.

She played high school and college volleyball and is currently a coach in the Woodland Hills School District. This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

For those who don't know, what's going to be your role here at Steel Valley, and what all does that involve?

I am the middle school emotional support teacher. So, primarily, my students have either behavioral needs or mental health needs. Obviously academics are included as well, but the reason they’re with me is to help with those emotional or behavioral challenge.

You mentioned you were with the the primary school and elementary school at Sto-Rox. What do you anticipate with working with this particular age group at the middle school?

When I moved to the upper elementary, I taught grades four, five and six. So, I have a little bit of familiarity with it, not so much seventh and eighth grade. But I did teach seventh and eighth grade in summer school throughout the years. And I’ve coached high school and middle school volleyball for the last three years. That was at Sto-Rox and now I’m at Woodland Hills. Our girls are looking really good and our season officially starts next week.

What can students and parents expect in your classroom?

Definitely relationships first, always. So, I'll take a lot of time the beginning of the school year to really get to know the students and not just in a school setting, but what they're all about as a whole person, what their interests are, family, any sports, things like that. It kind of all centers around all of that.

How important are those relationships for this particular classroom?

Oh, it’s the most important thing there is. I feel like a lot of times they usually come in with some type of trauma. Or if they do have a mental health diagnosis, I think they can be a little bit reluctant at first, especially if they've had a hard time in school. They may have not had the best experiences thus far, so they, may be a little bit reluctant to even want to be here. So, I think that kind of creates a little bit of a challenge at the beginning. But even at Sto-Rox I ended up getting a lot of the emotional support students because they just were not doing well in other classrooms.

So what drew you to education and special education in particular?

My grandma taught. I always looked up to her and I loved hearing her stories about school, helping in her classroom, all that kind of stuff. I've pretty much known since like  third grade that I wanted to be a teacher. There was never really anything else I could imagine doing. Even now, I couldn’t imagine doing something else.

Is there anything else you would like to add about coming to Steel Valley or anything that the community should know?

I’m just very, very excited to be here. This is the type of classroom that I've wanted to work in since college, when my first placement was in emotional support. So I'm real excited to be here and definitely going to be here long term. I just bought a house in Baldwin, so I'm in the area. I bartend and serve at Duke’s down the street. This is it. This is a new home for me, hopefully forever. And I’ve got two big dogs – you can add that in there, too- Hank and Milly.