Lisa Ann Walter Jokes She 'Loves' Her Abbott Elementary Kids as Her Own Won't...

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...'Give Me Grandbabies'

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"I love that I get to meet with the kids and teach them," the actress tells PEOPLE ahead of the season 4 premiere of 'Abbott Elementary' on Oct. 9.

Lisa Ann Walter says she has a special bond with her Abbott Elementary class.

On Sept. 12, PEOPLE partnered with IHG Hotels & Resorts to host a pre-Emmys panel event featuring the cast of the Emmy-nominated series Abbott Elementary. Walter, who attended alongside her costars Sheryl Lee Ralph, Chris Perfetti and William Stanford Davis, says that one of the things she enjoys when filming the show is spending time with the children who play her students.

"Some of them, especially when they're new, still look at us like teachers," Walter, who plays second-grade teacher Melissa Schemmenti, tells PEOPLE. "Even the ones that were in my class.”

“I'm Miss Melissa and they talk to me like I'm their teacher,” she continues. “Sometimes it's Miss Barbara, sometimes Mrs. Howard. And they ask us [questions] like, can they go to the bathroom or help with this worksheet?"

Walter, 61, said it is a very different experience than the one she has at home with her four grown kids Jordan, 36, Delia, 32, Spencer 24, and Simon 23 — especially since she doesn’t have any grandchildren yet.

"And personally I love it because my four grown children are too selfish to give me grandbabies," she jokes at the event, held at Kimpton Everly Hotel in Los Angeles. "One's getting a PhD, but that's her excuse. And I love that I get to meet with the kids and teach them and just share the time with them and sometimes it's wild."

The cast has spoken about their gratitude for the show several times before ahead of season 4. When news of the renewal first broke in April, Walter said this is the first time in her career she truly felt safe.

“We worked our whole three decades plus long careers and then became big hits at this stage of our lives," Walter told PEOPLE about herself and Ralph, 67, at the time. "Nothing is a guarantee about what you can do or when you should do it or what you should try."