This is a printer-friendly version of an article from Zip06.com.
01/23/2019 07:30 AMOf all the lessons she’s learned in her career as a school administrator, Deer Run Elementary School Principal Phyllis Savo has held on to one she learned as a school psychologist.
“Kids really want someone to listen to them and to talk to them and to be able to trust them and have a relationship with them,” she says. “Once you do, everything else falls into place.”
She began working as a psychologist for seven area schools in 1981, but it didn’t start out as a way to connect with struggling kids.
“It was looked at as an examiner; you just tested kids,” Phyllis says. “Over the years the rule definitely changed and it was more being there for kids and listening to them, which is what I thought it should be anyway.”
She says that special education, in the way it is understood today, didn’t really exist when she started. But as the job changed into more of what she had anticipated, Phyllis took on more administrative roles and found new ways to help the kids.
As the school psychologist, Phyllis says she was often asked to participate in the school’s administrative needs. This experience led her to become the assistant principal at Joseph Melillo Middle School in 2006.
“They say you have to be crazy to want middle school, so I guess I’m in that category,” she says. “They’re just so dynamic at that age.”
That was a different experience for her as well, as the assistant principalship put her in the role of a disciplinarian. But she didn’t let her experience as a school psychologist go by the wayside.
“I have to say, I tried to put a different spin on it and not be disciplinarian and be more listening and understanding,” she says.
When she became the principal of Deer Run Elementary School in 2014, her past experience became more important than ever.
“Deer Run is a very special place,” Phyllis says.
Phyllis makes it a point to maintain a relationship with the kids at her school either by getting into the classroom to read to them or through various positive behavior interventions and supports (PBIS) incentives.
“I would like to think I’m a very visible administrator,” she says.
The theme for teachers at Deer Run this year is “pushing past the status quo,” Phyllis says.
She wants both her students and teachers to continue to grow and learn.
“I look at it as a learning curve. Even the older kids, they’re still learning,” Phyllis says. “We learn through our mistakes. If everyone was perfect, it would be a pretty boring world.”
In addition to its K-2 classrooms, Deer Run operates a number of special education programs for children with needs ranging from the autism spectrum to developmental delays.
Phyllis says the Little Sea Stars program for kids aged three to five with developmental delays, primarily in speech, language, and motor skills, helps kids go on to kindergarten.
“They’re exposed to a very language rich environment,” Phyllis says. “They hear it, they see it, they’re doing it, so they’re interacting with their environment.”
The school also has a sensory room containing colorful and tactile toys like trampolines, tunnels, toadstools, and a white board table for math problems for their board certified behavior analyst.
“It started with teachers talking to me about having more sensory equipment for the kids,” Phyllis says.
Because the room allows the kids to use a varied array of senses, it helps them learn to interact with their world and develop motor skills. As a bonus, it’s another way to interact with the kids and develop language skills.
The programs at Deer Run are a part of East Haven’s special education programs, which Phyllis says are top notch.
“Early intervention is important. It works. I think that wait around, and you reap the benefits of what occurred earlier on,” she says.
Phyllis is particularly proud of the work done with students who have difficulty speaking or communicating.
“It’s amazing that when I first started, if a child had no language, by the end of the year they were putting three words together. It brings you to tears,” Phyllis says.
In addition to helping the kids speak, they can also use assistive technologies like an iPad to allow the child to point to communicate.
One of the most important things she can do for the programs and the children they help is to “be a voice for them, be and advocate. Speak up for them when their needs are not being met,” she says.
To nominate a Person of the Week, email Nathan Hughart at n.hughart@Zip06.com.