GUILDERLAND — Describing Ann-Marie McManus as a glass-half-full kind of person doesn’t do her justice; her cup runneth over.

Just a few days into her new job as an assistant principal at Guilderland High School, McManus says she loves it. That’s a phrase she repeats often as she describes her high school, her college, her career as a social studies teacher, and most especially the culture of the Guilderland schools.

Last month, the school board unanimously appointed her to the $80,000-a-year post, which her predecessor had filled for just under a year.

“My entire life I’ve been going, moving forward, aspiring to push myself,” said McManus. She also said that the man she married understands that.

“He always saw me as driven and he always supported that,” she said.

She met her husband, Christopher McManus, after college through mutual friends. They have two children — Jack, 7, a second-grader at Lynnwood Elementary School, and Nicholas, 3, who is currently in preschool at St. Madeleine Sophie but will eventually join his brother at Lynnwood.

This summer, Christopher McManus began his first term as a school board member. “I was very supportive as a spouse,” she said of his decision to run for the board in what turned out to be an uncontested election. “He is committed to what Guilderland stands for.”

He works for the state’s Division of the Budget as a senior analyst, and McManus described him as “a numbers guy.”

While his interest may lie in numbers, hers is in social studies in the broadest sense of the term — how cultures are formed and how communities interact.

McManus grew up on Long Island, in South Setauket, with an older brother and sister — part of a blue-collar family. She described her parents as hardworking and said they instilled in her a strong work ethic.

She attended public schools and loved Ward Melville High School. She was “very involved” in a wide range of organizations, from student government to Students Against Drunk Driving.

Her favorite teacher was Mr. Salerno, who taught social studies. “I loved all my social studies teachers; they inspired me from seventh grade on,” said McManus.

She said of her favorite, “He sat in a chair in the front of the room.” She noted that was a style not lauded in today’s classrooms where teachers are expected to be in motion, interacting with students. But, she went on, “He respected his students and our thoughts. That’s what a great teacher does.”

After high school, McManus went to the University at Albany. “I loved it,” she said. “I connected well.” From the day she arrived, she said, “I loved the campus.” She described it as big, and the students as varied. “You could find yourself there,” she said.

McManus liked the university so much that she earned four degrees there. Her bachelor of arts degree is in social-studies education with a minor in history. She then earned a master of science degree in reading, and then a certificate of advanced studies in educational administration, followed by an advanced graduate certificate in school business leader.

But she is not finished yet.

“I want to go back for a doctorate in administration,” she said. McManus is particularly interested in looking at how boys and girls study differently and what schools can do to enhance the way each gender learns.

McManus did her student teaching in 1999 and then worked as a teaching assistant at Guilderland in 2000-01. “I loved it,” she said.

She started as a Guilderland High School social studies teacher in 2001. “There is something special and unique about Guilderland,” she said. “I remember being embraced by that philosophy…Guilderland strives for excellence.”

McManus said this applies not just to academics but, rather, to helping students be “successful in life.” She described this as “the whole-child philosophy.”

She elaborated, “Each child that comes through the door has their own story to tell. It’s our job to understand and enhance that story.”

McManus loves the “energy” of a classroom, she said. “When you see a student get it, or hang on every word, there is no greater feeling,” she said. “You laugh together, you problem solve together. It’s great.”

“An educator through and through”

In the summer of 2008, McManus and another high school social studies teacher, Matthew Nelligan, rallied hundreds of students to fight their transfer to the middle school. Nelligan declared it “a witch hunt and a punishment” and said he was targeted because of his conservative views. McManus was out on maternity leave at the time, and Nelligan said then, “The district decided, in order to cover themselves for slapping me down, they’d transfer her….”

The superintendent at the time, John McGuire, backed by a majority of the school board, said it was not a punishment. Reports from an outside consultant showed a hostile work environment in the department and it needed a “fresh lease on life,” McGuire said. The teachers became a cause célèbre as television cameras filmed protests at board meetings, and Nelligan and his students went on radio talk shows. Nelligan submitted a letter of resignation his second day of teaching at Farnsworth Middle School and started work for the State Senate.

McManus taught at the middle school for a year before moving back to the high school. “It was one of the best experiences I ever had,” McManus said this week of teaching at Farnsworth. “You sometimes are given things you don’t realize are a gift. I met wonderful educators. It re-focused me…I’m an educator through and through. I’ll teach any grade.”

She said she found the middle school’s team approach “enlightening” and it is an “important piece of the whole process.”

McManus went on about her decision to become an administrator, “I feel every piece of a school community is important…I feel I can continue to help students in a different capacity.”

She noted she has already been involved in overseeing students, ranging from a dozen years as class advisor to being the administrator of this year’s summer school.

McManus said, in the few days she has been at her new post, she has seen her former students in the hallways where they tell her, “We miss you.” She conceded a part of her heart will always be in the classroom.

But she went on to describe her new duties about which she is passionate.

She’ll oversee discipline for all of the juniors and for three-quarters of the sophomores. The discipline referrals can range from using a cell phone in class to bullying and harassment, McManus said. Students, she said, come from different backgrounds with different needs and “sometimes academics isn’t where their heart is.”

She shares disciplinary duties with the other two assistant principals, working under Principal Thomas Lutsic — Mark Brooks, who is in charge of master scheduling, and Lisa Patierne, who focuses on the transition program, easing students from the middle school to the high school.

She’ll also oversee Regents exams, “a high priority” since the tests are mandated by the state to measure student success.

McManus will continue to oversee the PM School, a program she said she is “very, very proud of.”

She has been its administrator since it was founded two years ago; the school, which is housed at Pine Bush Elementary School after class, is staffed by “exceptional” high school teachers, she said, to serve students who have been suspended or are out on medical leave.

The school typically serves six to 10 students and has saved money for the district, which used to pay for individual tutors. McManus will no longer be the on-site administrator for the PM School but will oversee it, checking in when she picks up her son, Jack, who attends an after-school program at Pine Bush.

One part of her new job about which she is most excited is “community enhancement,” McManus said, explaining, “I’m passionate about co-curricular activities at school and the community at large.” She wants to “enhance the positive things our students do,” she said.

Last year, the high school’s cabinet, a shared decision-making team made up of parents and students as well as staff and administrators, named community involvement as a goal.

McManus will be working with a committee that so far has developed some open-ended goals such as increasing morale in the building with students, and reaching out “to all stakeholders.”

“I am truly honored to be given this opportunity to be assistant principal. I feel enthusiastic every day,” McManus concluded. “I hope to serve the Guilderland community well.”

“She is a worker”

When Rebecca Gleason resigned in July, just shy of a year at Guilderland, the school board discussed cutting the third assistant-principal post with some members citing declining enrollment. Lutsic, though, pointed out that the enrollment this year was expected to decrease by just 23 students to 1,691.

He also said that he and his three assistants had handled 2,028 discipline referrals over the course of the year and noted the responses involved a lot of counseling. “You want to prevent that behavior from happening again,” said Lutsic.

He said, too, that new state requirements for evaluating teachers take more of administrators’ time. The board decided to keep the three assistant-principal posts.

There were 159 applicants for the opening, Superintendent Marie Wiles said this week. The field was narrowed to seven by Lutsic and members of the high school leadership team along with union representatives, said Wiles.

The first round of interviews with a large committee of stakeholders brought the candidates’ résumés to life, Wiles said, and winnowed the field to three. The second round, again with the large committee, dealt with more specifics, focusing on candidates’ strengths and weaknesses.

“The support for Ann-Marie was overwhelming,” said Wiles, and the committee endorsed just one candidate strongly for the third and final round — McManus. The district’s three assistant superintendents along with Wiles and Lutsic conducted the final interview and were not disappointed.

“First and foremost was her tremendous enthusiasm and commitment to Guilderland Central Schools and especially to the high school,” said Wiles. “She was tremendously well prepared...She has a great understanding of what we value in Guilderland,” said Wiles, and she will help build “a positive school climate.”

Wiles cited McManus’s “track record” at Guilderland, anchoring the new PM School, which she called “very, very successful” and “stepping in at the last minute” to be the administrator for summer school, the first time Guilderland has used a regional model. Wiles said summer school, too, was very successful and credited McManus’s hard work.

She said McManus is someone who follows through with plans and has the ability to work well with a wide variety of people.

Wiles concluded, “She is a worker. She doesn’t stop until everything is done and done well.”