Filing period set for school boards
Candidate sign-ups start Wednesday
The one-week filing period for candidates seeking election in May to school boards will begin at noon Wednesday and continue until noon Feb. 20.
In Pulaski County, only the Jacksonville/North Pulaski School District has opted to participate in May 21 elections.
Two positions are open this year on the seven-member board.
The nearby North Little Rock, Pulaski County Special and Little Rock districts hold board and/or property tax referendums in November.
Arkansas lawmakers prior to 2018 did away with the singular annual September school elections and authorized school boards to choose to hold the elections in either May or November. In even-numbered years, the elections are held at the same time as the political party primary election in May or the general election in November.
In Jacksonville, School Board incumbents Marcia Dornblaser and Ron McDaniel, who is the board’s current president, said Wednesday that they will run for re-election. The terms are for four years and are unpaid.
Both seek election as the district is replacing all of its campus buildings. The district is obligated as a party in a federal school desegregation lawsuit to make its aging campuses comparable to new, more modern schools in the neighboring Pulaski County Special district. A new elementary school opened this school year in the Jacksonville district. A new high school campus will open in August. Another new elementary and a middle school are in the planning stages and two additional elementaries planned for later years.
Dornblaser and McDaniel said they are running for re-election because they want to see the buildings completed. Both also said they support a proposed extension of the district’s current 22.4 debt service property tax mills as a way to generate almost $60 million for buildings without raising the annual tax rate.
That proposed extension — in which the annual tax rate would remain the same but taxpayers would pay the rate for additional years — also will be on the May 21 school election ballot .
Dornblaser and McDaniel were first elected to the Jacksonville board in September 2015, making them part of the new school district’s first elected board.
The Jacksonville district was formed in 2014 after voters in the region opted to detach from the Pulaski County Special School District. Shortly after that vote, the Arkansas Board of Education ordered the creation of the district and appointed an interim School Board to begin the work of dividing assets and liabilities between the new district and the Pulaski County Special district, and otherwise prepare the Jacksonville/North Pulaski district for operating on its own.
McDaniel was part of that state-appointed interim board he ran for and won election.
The new district began operating independently of the Pulaski County Special district on July 1, 2016.
Dornblaser, a longtime Jacksonville resident and a dental hygienist, holds the board’s Zone 1 seat. Zone 1 encompasses the northern half of the district.
McDaniel holds one of two at-large positions, meaning all district residents can vote for candidates for that seat. He retired in 2012 as a colonel and commander of the 189th Maintenance Group, Arkansas Air National Guard at Little Rock Air Force Base.
People seeking to be candidates for school board seats have to qualify by submitting a political practices pledge, an affidavit of eligibility and a petition signed by at least 20 registered voters who are residents of the school district and, if applicable, the election zone for the position. Those documents go to the county clerk.