Burgess, Barnett to battle for Bentonville board seat

Bentonville School District administration building.
Bentonville School District administration building.

BENTONVILLE -- Voters in part of the city will choose between two candidates for the School Board this fall.

Kirk Barnett is challenging incumbent Matt Burgess for the board's Zone 6 seat. Barnett and Burgess were the only two who filed to run for the position during the weeklong filing period that ended Wednesday.

Fun fact

There has been at least one contested race for a Bentonville School Board seat each year since 2008.

Source: Staff report

The school election will be held in conjunction with the general election Nov. 6.

Burgess, 47, is pursuing his second five-year term. He said it's a healthy sign when people are registering to run for a board position, which is a volunteer job.

"You want to have people in the community who are interested in the schools," said Burgess, an attorney for Walmart.

Barnett, 37, is originally from Tuscaloosa, Ala. He's lived in Bentonville for 10 years and is an account manager for the toy company Spin Master.

Barnett served as president of Willowbrook Elementary School's parent-teacher organization the past two school years.

"I don't necessarily disagree with a lot of the ways he has voted," Barnett said of Burgess. "I just feel I have a perspective that may be a little different and be helpful to the district."

Barnett said he's interested in making sure teachers have what they need to do their jobs well. He also would like to make certain parents are heard.

"I feel there's a lot of brushing off of parents sometimes," he said. "That's where I think my perspective comes into play, to be able to voice some of those concerns."

Burgess said he met Barnett once at a Willowbrook parent-teacher organization meeting. He noted Barnett also has spoken at a couple of board meetings during time allotted for public comment.

Burgess earned his seat in 2013 by defeating incumbent Rudy Upshaw. He said he's accumulated the 50 hours of board training needed to qualify for the Arkansas School Boards Association's master board member designation.

"I truly do love our kids and our teachers," he said.

During his time on the board, Burgess has been a part of opening three new schools and winning a 1.9-mill tax increase to pay for construction of four more schools, the first of which will open next year.

There are seven seats on the board, each representing a different zone of the School District. Zone 6, which covers parts of central and south Bentonville, is the only seat up for election this year.

Only people who live in the zone are eligible to vote. Residents may visit www.voterview.ar-nova.org to learn what zone they live in.

Burgess and his wife, Jennifer, have two children in the district: a seventh-grader and an 11th-grader. Jennifer Burgess is a math teacher at Bright Field Middle School.

Barnett has two children, a fifth-grader and a third-grader, in the district. He is divorced.

Act 910 of the 2017 legislative session changed the timing of school board elections from the third Tuesday of September to either May or November. The law took effect this year.

The law allows each school board to choose whether to hold its election during the primary election in May or the general election in November or, during odd-numbered years, the date the primary or general election would occur if it were an even-numbered year.

Bentonville was one of 33 boards in the state, and the only one in Northwest Arkansas, that chose to hold its election in November. The other 202 districts chose May.

NW News on 08/13/2018

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