Super Shadow

This article will be the first in a series of stories that track the inner workings of our school administration.  It is designed to follow in the footstep of the “CEO” of Cannon Falls Schools, Beth Giese.

6:30

A whole hour before most students have even arrived at school, Ms. Giese was in the cafeteria, where the Cannon Falls Rotary was hosting the meeting.  Ms. Giese is a member of the Rotary, an organization known for its service to the

community. To the meeting she brought along her iPad, wallet, and trusty yellow legal pad that contained her to-do list for the day. As the Rotarians filed into the auditorium for their speaker, Ms. Giese introduced me to Senator Matt Schmitt, with a wry smile, as her assistant superintendent.

7:40

After the senator spoke, the time had come to head back to Ms. Giese’s office — tucked away by the district doors. Once inside, she pulled out her yellow legal pad along with a neatly typed schedule for the day.

Her next order of business was to explain what a large part of her day involves making phone calls, and went on to reveal the contents of her legal pad. She had drawn a line down the middle, and labeled “do” on one side and “call” on the other. The “do” side was a run of the mill to-do list with not so run of the mill things to do.

8:15

“Call” was reserved for the names and phone numbers of people that she needed to call back. She went on to say that a parent had called the night before, after she had gone home, so now she was returning his call. It is unbelievable how she was able to handle the call with such poise, never raising her voice, or in any other way betraying negative emotion.

After ending the conversation, she revealed an important technique toremember when dealing with callers (especially angry ones); when they start throwing accusations at you, sometimes it is better to just agree with them. Obviously don’t agree if they are telling you to fire someone, but if they insist they’ve called you a thousand times, when in reality they’ve left one message, just agree. This helps to keep the discussion relatively calm.

8:30

Giese’s next order of business was a meeting with Cannon Falls Police Chief McCormick. They discussed safety measures for both the elementary and high schools, going back and forth between opinions and ideas. The discussion was focused on the addition of new cameras, and door locking systems to both the elementary and high schools. Both were adamant about the safety of the students.

8:55

Afterwards, she ventured out into the cold to walk down to the elementary school for an administration meeting. At this meeting, Giese met with both the elementary and high school principals, along with Cannon Falls Special Education Coordinator,Sharon Noble. Among other things they discussed the school calendar for next year. Who knew there would be a spring break next year?! Honestly, it was a pretty boring meeting, but also an important one. They seemed to resolve issue after issue in the blink of an eye throughout the meeting. At some point Ms. Giese jokingly disclosed that the only day she gets to mark off on her calendar is December 1st. All the other days, she is busy working for the betterment of Cannon Falls students.

9:40

The  final activity of her morning seemed to be a favorite of Ms. Giese. Her senior interviews. She uses these to gain information about the school district, and to help her to connect with the students through questions about bullying, their pasts, and their futures.

1:00 P.M.

Later on in the day there was an important meeting with all of the school’s heads of departments. It was sort of an update for all of the heads about what each other are doing.

Ms. Giese’s is a job few students truly understand or appreciate. The success she must feel when she is finally able to cross the last items off of her list and call it a night must be tremendous, even knowing it will be full before noon the next day.