This year welcomes not only new students, but also new teachers. Eleven new teachers joined the staff.

Dane Leone

Spanish teacher Dane Leone will be teaching Spanish 2, 3 and 4 as well as 3.5.

Leone is not very familiar with area of Altoona since he went to school at Penn State and grew up around Pittsburgh.

“I actually was never all that familiar with the Altoona area; however, I have had some friends from the area and family that worked here,” Leone said. “All of my interactions with the people of Altoona have always been positive and meaningful and that was a big draw for me and on top of that, I love the diversity that the students in the district bring.” 

Leone was not always going to college to be a teacher or educator.

“I went to Penn State to study finance and accounting, but after a year of classes and deciding business was not for me, I needed to find a new direction,” Leone said.

Leone fell in love with the idea of working with young learners in a classroom setting.

“I fused this interest with my interest in Spanish which I was already planning on minoring in and became a world languages education student,” Leone said.

His interest in Spanish stems from many sources including family and the idea of being able to communicate with a different population. He believes that energy is contagious which will make students excited for class.

“I have a genuine love for the Spanish language and showing my students a glimmer of that can help them get excited too,” Leone said. “Although, I’m still trying to figure out the type of classroom I want, one way that I set my classroom apart is by having a positive learning environment.”

Leone has many interests outside of teaching at the school.

“Two of my largest areas of interests are music and sports since after growing up in a music-filled household, music has become a big part of my life as well as I’m a big Pittsburgh sports fan and have been my whole life,” Leone said.

He is a Penn State fan as well and likes to go to whatever concerts he can manage, he also plays guitar in his spare time.

Mary Yahner

 Yahner teaches the Probability and Statistics elective. Yahner says she has always liked math, so she decided to pursue a teaching career at AAHS.

“I decided to teach at Altoona because I am impressed with not only the school’s reputation but also the direction in which the school is heading,” Yahner said.

Before having an interest in teaching, Yahner was an engineer for fifteen years.  

“As a high school senior deciding what to do with my life, being a teacher was one of my interests.  I actually initially decided to go to college at Pitt and be a Mechanical Engineer. After working for about fifteen years as an engineer in industry, I decided to go back to school and get my teaching certificate about one and a half years ago.  I did this because helping to educate others is significant work. I like being around the youth in our area,” Yahner said.

The transition was simple, as Yahner already took the math courses to be an engineer that was needed to become a math teacher.  She wants to use her past knowledge with engineering to her advantage by incorporating it into her curriculum.

“As a former engineer, I want to incorporate STEM, which is science, technology, engineering, and math, activities into the probability and statistics classroom.  That will generate data to analyze,” Yahner said.

Yahner wants to start doing something with her classes that would be similar to a current event in news.

“I am starting a current statistic of the day trivia fact, and I hope that will be something that students look forward to learning about,” Yahner said.

Outside of the classroom, Yahner enjoys spending time with loved ones.

“My interests include being with my husband and watching our two high school daughters and high school son participate in sports and TSA, exercising, and spending time with friends and family,” Yahner said.

Adam Redinger

Another new teacher this year is Adam Redinger. Redinger teaches Algebra 1 and geometry to students in all grades here in the building.

After having to teach himself in math throughout high school, he decided to become a teacher in order to change the dynamic between students and teachers.

“[Math] was the subject that clicked the most with me and in that subject I found I had to teach myself more than I did in other areas of school,”  Redinger said.

He knew he wanted to be a teacher ever since participating in job shadowing when he was a sophomore in high school.

In order to set his classroom apart from other ones, Redinger has an open environment with lots of engagement that encourages the students to learn in different way.

“I come into school every day with a positive attitude and a lot of energy in order to get my students excited for class… I also strive to build positive relationships with all of my students,” Redinger said.

Outside of class, Redinger loves sports, specifically the teams of Pittsburgh and the Penn State football team. He also loves to spend time with his family and friends.

Megan McElwee

  Megan McElwee is new to the school this year as an eleventh grade English teacher.

  McElwee came to work for the school because she enjoyed the area.

  “I actually did my undergrad at Penn State Altoona, so I was familiar with the community and I liked it here. So when I heard that there was an opening I decided to apply for it and come back,” McElwee said.

Originally McElwee was going to be a lawyer, and wasn’t an education major.

“My senior year of college I decided I wanted to be a teacher. I was actually going to be a lawyer, and I wasn’t an education major. I was working with my aunt at an autistic support school and I helped out during winter break, and I really enjoyed it,” McElwee said.

Going into college, McElwee was an English/lit major, so when deciding what to teach she didn’t have much difficulty.

“I was an English major, and I just loved literature. And I thought ‘if I’m going to teach, I’m going to teach English.’ I think I always knew, even going into college I was an English/lit major because you can do anything with that background,” McElwee said.

The transition into switching from law to teaching was different.

“When I went into my master’s program, everyone had some kind of minor in education or did something in education, so I came into my program not thinking like an English teacher, I was thinking like an English student. So it was a very interesting transition, I think, to kind of get out of that student mindset and into a teacher mindset, and I think that was the most difficult part for me,” McElwee said.

McElwee tries to make the class more interesting to make her students excited to come to class.

“I try to be entertaining. I really try to mix things up, and present things in different ways. Often times, I think, ‘okay, why do I like something?’ I try to start with what’s the most entertaining parts of this?” McElwee said.

McElwee plans on setting her class apart from the other classes by bringing different elements of the world into her class.

“I hope that I’m the class that kids who didn’t like English before can say that they like English. I feel like I pull in a lot of different things. You’re not only going to be reading in my class, you’re going to do things that I think kind of cross with culture, and cross into history and maybe even science, so I think maybe that’s how I’d set myself apart. I wanna be that English teacher that shows you that it can be applied to other places,” McElwee said.

Outside of school, McElwee pursues many different activities.

“I like to do yoga, I like to hike, I like animals, mostly cats, I like food. I like to go to restaurants I can’t afford because I like food too much,” McElwee said.

Rebecca Skebeck

Rebecca Skebeck, a former Indiana University of Pennsylvania student, has joined the school over the summer.

Skebeck says she visited other schools before she came to Altoona.

“I love the [Altoona] school district, the students and the staff,” Skebeck said.

Skebeck started out as a pre-med student and then later changed her major.

“I decided later in life I wanted to be a teacher. I originally went for pre-med, and then later decided this is the profession I want to be in. I really enjoy teaching others and I like working with younger students,” Skebeck said.

Rebecca plans on making her classes exciting by incorporating lots of hand on learning and labs.

“I would like to introduce technology into the classroom so I am excited to have an opportunity of incorporating the technology into the learning as well,” Skebeck said.

Outside of school, Skebeck enjoys horseback riding.

Gallery • 4 Photos

Sonia Yost

Redinger talks with his class about the opener of the day. The class discussed angles and bisectors while preparing for an upcoming test.

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