Two seek School Board seat

Providing a fresh perspective and change is what Mindy Cawthon hopes to do if elected to the Pea Ridge School Board. Cawthon is seeking the seat currently held by John Dye, who filed for re-election.

Dye said he wants to share his skill sets in finance, business and leadership to help the school district provide the best quality education for students.

Dye, a certified public accountant, and his wife, Bobbi Jo, have three children in the Pea Ridge schools. They have lived in Pea Ridge since 2005. Dye is a native of Seligman, Mo., and graduated from Southwest Baptist University with a bachelor’s degree in accounting.

Cawthon, director of eCommerce Channel Development for InBloom Group Inc., and her husband, Adam, have two children in Pea Ridge schools and a son who graduated from Pea Ridge High School. They have been in Pea Ridge since 2005. Cawthon, a 1996 graduate of Rogers High School, attended Northwest Arkansas Community College where she studied elementary education. She said she is now going back to school to earn a degree in business.

“I want to do what’s best for our school, our kids, our community,” Dye said. “I don’t have an agenda except to provide the best quality education and educational environment for our kids first of all and secondly to provide the best work environment for our teachers and administrators.”

“We have to have a vision how we’re changing,” Dye said. “That has to be communicated and incorporated.”

Cawthon said: “We need change. We have wonderful teachers and we lost a lot of teachers last year.

“The main thing I want to do is support our teachers and our students. I want to be an advocate for the students and the teachers,” she said.

Dye said he wants to continue to use his skill sets and talents to serve. He said he has a lot of business and leadership experience, in addition to his financial knowledge.

“I have leadership ability,” Dye said. “Taking the facts and making decisions based on the criteria in front of us — decisions that

while involved with teachers and other students’ parents, she hears a lot of questions about the state of the schools.

“I hear that teachers want to feel valued and supported,” she said, adding that the complaints she’s heard are not about salaries. She said School Board members should meet directly with teachers to hear their concerns.

Cawthon, who said she has been registered to vote “ever since I could,” said she did vote for the increased millage.

“I would say ‘vote for me because we need somebody to support the teachers,’” she said. “Having a fresh perspective is not necessarily a bad thing.”

“It’s hard to keep a ship on track when your leadership is constantly changing. How can you adequately prepare teachers when leadership is constantly changing?” Cawthon said there have been several administrators to leave the schools in the past few years. She also said test scores are below proficient and she believes teachers must be prepared.

Dye said the board does evaluate the superintendent once a year on his abilities and that evaluation is not just from the meetings but from regular involvement with him.

“It’s not just a once a month process,” Dye said, adding that he is in constant communication with the superintendent and receives weekly updates.

“I have three children in the school. I’ve been involved in the community since 2005, am involved in Bright Futures, a local church and with this gym (DyeHards),” he said. “I invest in the community and have an on-going desire to continue to invest in Pea Ridge.

“The the school is the largest entity in our community. I want to be part of the largest influencing entity in our town — it affects people and our own children,” he said.

Dye said his mother was a teacher and he has a heart for teachers. He said he understands that teachers “don’t do it all for the pay.”

He said he’s been registered to vote as long as he’s lived here and has voted in every election and did vote for the millage increase.

Cawthon said she is not opposing Dye and said the current School Board works hard. “I think their hearts are in the right place. They’ve done a lot of good things,” she said. “I’m not saying everything needs to change.”