SCHOOL BOARD races slated for March 3.

One district draws no candidates

FAYETTEVILLE — One Northwest Arkansas school district’s board drew no candidates despite having four of its five seats available during the recent filing period for 2020 elections.

Steven Watkins, Decatur’s superintendent, said each current board member intends to continue serving past the March election date.

Three of those members whose seats were available qualify as “holdovers” who will automatically retain their positions. A member can serve as a holdover for up to one full term after the one to which they were elected if no one else files to run for their seat each year.

“The only way they could get out of being a board member is if they resigned,”

Watkins said.

The board would need to reappoint one member, Karen Davis, next year because she was not previously elected. She was appointed to the Zone 1 position in 2018 and reappointed earlier this year, Watkins said.

The one-week filing period ended Tuesday with 22 candidates running for 21 seats in school districts in Benton and Washington counties.

Fayetteville will have two races and Springdale will have one in the school board elections March 3. Smaller school districts including Farmington, Gravette and Pea Ridge each will have one race to decide.

Six seats, including the four in Decatur, drew no candidates at all. The others

were Zone 3 in Rogers and Position 3 in Elkins.

Local school boards had a choice of having elections next year in conjunction with the preferential primaries in March or the general election in November. Bentonville and Prairie Grove were the only Northwest Arkansas districts that chose November; their filing periods will be next summer.

While some seats represent specific zones within a district, other seats are atlarge and thus represent the entire district. Candidates must be qualified voters and live in the district or zone for which they’re running. Board zone maps can be found on each school district’s website.

Terms for all board members are five years, unless candidates are running to complete an unexpired term.

Decatur, with about 530 students, is the smallest district in Northwest Arkansas. The district has 1,555 registered voters, according to the Benton County clerk’s office.

Decatur had three positions available during the last election cycle this past spring; Ike Owens, an incumbent, was the only person who filed, and that was as a write-in candidate.

Watkins, however, is happy with the board he has.

“It’s a really good board. They really support the schools. They do a lot of hard work for very little recognition,” he said.

Tony Prothro, executive director of the Arkansas School Boards Association, said the Decatur situation is highly unusual. The difficulty of drawing candidates for board seats varies from district to district.

“Even in some smaller districts, there will be multiple candidates for one position. So it’s based on circumstances in those communities,” Prothro said.

School board service is unpaid and requires those elected to their positions to get a certain amount of training, so it is a significant time commitment, he said.

“You have to have a heart for kids and be ready to make policy decisions at the top level,” Prothro said. “We always encourage people who have that type of a mindset to run for local school boards.”

FAYETTEVILLE

Three seats on the Fayetteville board were up for election. Justin Eichmann, board president, was the only person who filed to run for the Zone 3 seat, meaning he will get a third term. Eichmann, 45, has been unopposed in his previous two elections.

Fayetteville will have races for its Zone 2 and 4 seats, however.

Robert Maranto is seeking his second term in Zone 2. Maranto, 61, is the 21st Century chair in leadership in the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas. He has two children, one of whom is a recent graduate of Fayetteville High School and another who is a 10th-grader there. He’s lived in Fayetteville since 2008.

His opponent is Tracey Pomeroy, 50, who has three children in the district. She is an accountant with the Prier, Burch and Schermerhorn CPA firm in Fayetteville. She was a teacher for two years in Indiana. She has lived in Fayetteville

for most of her life.

Two candidates are running for Fayetteville’s Zone 4 seat. The winner will serve the remaining two years of former member Traci Farrah’s term. Farrah resigned and the board appointed Garrett Richardson to the seat in July.

Richardson filed to run, but on Nov. 10, he submitted his resignation to Eichmann, saying he had to move out of the district to assist an ailing family member. Richardson’s new residence will be just outside the district by a matter of about 100 feet, Eichmann said. The board has 30 days from the date of Richardson’s resignation to appoint his replacement.

That leaves two candidates in the race: Justin Jones and Katrina Osborne, a pair of political newcomers.

Jones, 37, has lived in Northwest Arkansas since 1994 and in Fayetteville since 2000. He is a math tutor and owner of a company called Tutoring Solutions. He previously worked for six years as a teacher at the Archer Learning Center, the Springdale School District’s alternative learning environment for high school students. He has two stepchildren — one in the Fayetteville district, one in the Springdale district — and another child who’s not of school age.

Osborne, 41, works part time for Life Styles, a nonprofit organization, which provides services for people with disabilities. She volunteers in the schools and is a Girl Scout troop leader. She and her husband have three children in different schools in the district. She’s originally from California, but has lived in Northwest Arkansas for 20 years.

SPRINGDALE

In Springdale, the race is on for an at-large seat held by longtime member Mike Luttrell, who opted not to run for reelection. Clinton Bell and Edwin Strickland filed to take his place.

Bell, 44, is chief executive officer of Quadrivium, a Springdale-based company that deals in data storage and protection. He has a 10th-grader and a sixth-grader in the district. He has lived in Springdale since 1998.

Strickland, 47, is a former administrator in the Springdale and Fayetteville school districts. He works for Generation Ready, a company that provides professional development services for schools and teachers. He has an eighth-grader and a ninth-grader enrolled in the district, and two sons who graduated from the district.

Strickland said he’s been told if he wins in March, he would become the first black candidate elected to a school board position in Northwest Arkansas.

Springdale’s Zone 5 seat also was up for election. Eddie Ramos, whom the board appointed to the seat in March, was the only person to file for it.

ELSEWHERE

In Rogers, where two seats are up for election, incumbent Zone 5 representative Paige Sultemeier was the only person who filed to run. Sultemeier will get a second term.

Kristen Cobbs, the Rogers board’s senior member, opted not to run for a fourth term. Nobody filed to run for her seat. The board will have to appoint a member, who will be able to serve a year before having to stand for election in 2021 in order to finish out the five-year term.

Pea Ridge will have a race for its Position 5 seat between incumbent Ryan Heckman and John Dye. Heckman is seeking his second term. Dye served one term on the board in Position 4 and was board president before being ousted in May by Mindy Cawthon. Pea Ridge’s board is not divided into geographic zones, therefore residents may run for any of the five positions when they come up for election.

Farmington’s race for Position 3 is between Josh Petree and Mark Vaughn. One will replace Wade Cash, who is in his first term and is not running for reelection.

In Gravette, there will be a race for the Position 4 seat between incumbent Ty Russell and Tim Craig. Russell was appointed to the seat a few years ago and is seeking his first full term.