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Home › Articles › Special Features › Frank Zissis

Frank Zissis

Teacher of the Month

By Crystal Patriarche

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When Zissis is asked for other examples of when he's really felt like he helped a student, he recounts the year when he had a child who moved into his classroom after being taken away from his family. Later in the year, the boy moved on to another foster family and was upset to leave his new friends at the school. "Since the boy was a big Pittsburg Steelers fan, I arranged to have a friend, Craig Wolfley, who is a former Steeler, visit the classroom as a special guest at the boy's 'going away party,'" Zissis says. "Craig signed autographs for the entire class and brought the boy a football signed by many pro athletes."

Several weeks later, Zissis got a letter from the boy saying it was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for him. "I was happy that I could make a hard situation a little less frightening for him," Zissis says.

Class Wizard

Though he is humble when asked of his strengths, one thing Zissis is proud of is when he was at one of his student's soccer games and a mother came up and thanked him. "She told me that her son had always hated reading and was not very good at it as a result," he says. "For Christmas, her son asked for all of the Harry Potter books. She and her husband were shocked and thrilled. It was the first time their son had taken any interest in reading at all."

Griffen says Zissis is a great teacher because he loves computers and science, and he makes reading fun and interesting – by reading Harry Potter in class. "He is a bigger kid than we are!" Griffen says.


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