Ep. 18 - Public Education Leadership: Inside Bentonville's Rapid Growth

Rapid growth puts immense pressure on public infrastructure, and school systems are often the first to feel the strain. Managing tens of thousands of students while maintaining high academic standards requires constant adaptation and zero tolerance for stagnation. Superintendent Dr. Debbie Jones, who leads Bentonville Schools, sits down to share her perspective on leading one of the fastest-growing school districts in Arkansas.

We get into the specific operational and strategic moves required to manage a district serving over 20,000 students. Dr. Debbie Jones details the intentional expansion of specialized magnet options like International Baccalaureate programs, the strategy behind partnering with local industry for regional career health campuses, and the district's practical, human-centered policy on integrating AI tools into classrooms. She also reveals her perspective on instructional leadership, emphasizing that true accountability focuses on whether students are actively learning rather than merely monitoring how teachers teach.

Growth creates friction, and attracting top talent becomes nearly impossible when local real estate pricing priced out incoming professionals. To counter contract resignations caused by high living costs, Bentonville Schools took on an ambitious initiative to build district-owned, affordable cottage housing for its staff. Providing structural solutions to systemic problems ensures the district continues to retain high-performing personnel despite broader economic pressures.

If you care about public education innovation, district leadership strategies, and creative solutions to workforce retention, you will get a lot from this conversation. Subscribe to the channel and share this episode with someone interested in local leadership. What is the most pressing challenge facing public school systems in your region today?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

This is Central to NWA, a UCA podcast. I'm your host, Paul Gatling, and we are bringing the University of Central Arkansas to Northwest Arkansas. Each episode, we will talk with leaders, alumni, and innovators driving this region forward. People who are shaping industries and defining what is next for our state. Let's get started. All right, welcome back to another episode of Central to NWA, UCA podcast, where we have conversations with UCA alumni, business leaders, and people who are helping shape all the exciting things and the growth happening in Northwest Arkansas in terms of leadership, innovation, and education. My guest today is somebody that I've been looking forward to meeting in person. We've talked over the phone a couple of times, but today is our first face-to-face conversation. She leads one of the largest and fastest growing school districts, public school districts in Arkansas, more than 20,000 students, about 2,500 employees. She's also a University of Central Arkansas alumna. She earned her master's degree in educational administration. And in 2025, she was named Arkansas Superintendent of the Year. Dr. Debbie Jones is the superintendent of Bentonville Schools. Welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

Oh, it's so great to be here.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

And good to meet you in person. Yeah, you as well. Now you're about to begin your 11th year. 11th academic year in Bentonville. Wow. Do you pinch yourself when you see it when you hear that sentence? 11 years.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

You know, it just flies. I can't believe I've been superintendent going on my 11th year. Uh we moved from Central Arkansas, February 1, 2016. And it has been such an amazing experience.

SPEAKER_00 1:43

Right. And do you still get the uh uh first of school year? Does that still excite you? Do you still mark your calendar by the dates in the summertime?

SPEAKER_01 1:52

We're very much systematic in our thinking. Um, and we're for my administrative team right now. We're very very busy. We work all summer and it's strategic planning for the upcoming year. We start always in early July with our cabinet retreat where we set focus goes, followed up by our administrator meeting with all of our principals and assistant principals and focusing for the next year.

SPEAKER_00 2:21

Yeah. And so before you came up here, one of your stops, you and I have talked about this, is where you and I have a small connection. We we both know Bryant pretty well. Yes, we do. I'm a Bryant high school graduate, and you spent several years there helping lead the school district. One year as principal, I think, and then um several years in the administrative offices before making your way to Northwest Arkansas.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

I was in Bryant eight great years, great experience.

SPEAKER_00 2:45

Yeah. Well, listen, I'm again excited you're here. We're going to talk about Bentonville schools and education and leadership. And um uh, but first let's talk about um Charleston, Arkansas, where you grew up, right? Born in Fort Smith, but you moved to Charleston uh at a young age where you grew up in um, you know, a family that maybe kind of set your path towards education, right? Very much so. Paint that picture for me. What was it like?

SPEAKER_01 3:08

Um my dad was a football coach, marketing teacher in the summertime. Some of my greatest memories, my sister and I would go to North Side, we'd run the halls while he worked, we'd look in open lockers, and so education's been lifelong for me. But uh we belled hay. I got my tan on the tractor, raking hay, no joke. And that's back in the day when you could be in the sun all day, and the darker you got, the better.

SPEAKER_02 3:36

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 3:37

Um we grew up playing three girls, we all played sports, basketball, softball. Dad was oftentimes a coach for us in summer sports and grew up very competitive as a football coach would have it.

SPEAKER_02 3:53

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 3:53

And uh they still, my parents are 84 and 85, still have big gardens, lots of cows on the farm. He's the difference now is the tractor is air conditioned. It was not so much when I was there.

SPEAKER_00 4:08

Right. Love technology and the advancements of technology on the farm. So you would consider be considered a farm girl. I am a farm girl from Charleston. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:18

Now, my dad, he always wants to talk politics when I go home, I don't engage, and he calls me a city girl now. But truly, the values that we learn from mom and dad. And this is one thing that I've realized throughout my adulthood is we're still trying to make mom and dad proud. Always.

SPEAKER_00 4:38

I think that's that's universal. You know, my my dad was a um uh public school administrator retired. My mother was um public school teacher retired. Actually, she she taught, she is a UCA graduate. Really? Um, her senior year was the year 67-68, the year they changed from if I get this right, State Teachers College of Arkansas to State College of Arkansas, then later UCA. But yeah, she took a job at Mariana right out of UCA, and then to Baldknob, and then to Bryant, where she finished up. She finished up the the bulk of her career there at Bryant. So a lot of what you said there just resonated with me. And probably like me, like you, I mean, your your parents, especially your dad, probably is a football coach, probably kind of shaped your view of leadership. Would that be an accurate thing to say?

SPEAKER_01 5:26

Absolutely. And um he's the one that said you'd make a good English teacher. Right. And so that's why I pursued English. But I tell you what, my mom, as far as professional female, there is not a more consummate professional than I saw in her every day. She was a chief administrator's admin, Sister Judith Marie at Mercy in Fort Smith, and they're still very close. But she would put on hose and heels and a jacket every day. She would work all day, come home, cook dinner every single night. But she modeled just grace and um I guess emotional control and leadership that I really have great respect for today.

SPEAKER_00 6:16

Yeah. What was high school like for you playing sports and growing up with you? Tell me what that was like.

SPEAKER_01 6:21

Everything revolved around basketball. It revolved around the sports, and that's why I have a true appreciation for um whether it's fine arts or whether it's athletics, academics, or career. A student has to have a major interest to get them engaged in school. And um I would say when we talk about priorities in Bentonville schools, three things. And they're all, no one has greater priority than the other. Athletics, fine arts, bands, orchestra, all the things, art and academic. And I very much keep those on an equal plane because you have to get school kids engaged so that they want to be at school. And there is an answer for everyone. There's a way to get at every student to get them there and get them engaged and want to be there.

SPEAKER_00 7:23

How do you do that? How do you tap into those students? How do you get them into engage?

SPEAKER_01 7:28

You have to offer a wide array of opportunities. And you have to be very vocal about telling the story. Um, within each one of those programs, you have to offer a student a chance to lead, to shy, to participate. They just have to find their crew, their group of kids that they feel comfortable with and they want to be around. And that's why I couldn't even begin to give you the number of clubs we have at the schools now. Um, at one time, when uh we counted them probably five or six years ago at BHS, we had over 50 different clubs kids could join. And that's not including all the other sports and fine arts and opportunities.

SPEAKER_00 8:13

Right.

SPEAKER_01 8:14

And so there's a place for everyone.

SPEAKER_00 8:16

Did you have a good crew as a Charleston Lady Tiger basketball player? Pretty good teams in high school. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:22

We were always good.

SPEAKER_00 8:23

Yeah, Charleston's always got good high school athletic programs.

SPEAKER_01 8:26

We were. I I wasn't as good as my little sister who went on to play college ball at SMU. Uh, but I was always point guard, and my older sister was the post. And so we we had the opportunity to play together throughout our high school years. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:43

Yep. State tournament runs.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

Always.

SPEAKER_00 8:45

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 8:45

Always. Always.

SPEAKER_00 8:48

All right. And so then you you attended the U of A University of Arkansas, got married, spent a few years moving around the country, but eventually you found your way back to Arkansas and into the classroom, as you said, as an English teacher. Yes. What did you love about teaching? Being in the classroom.

SPEAKER_01 9:04

The most um memorable times were those times that I could engage with students in discussing literature. That was the best. And, you know, uh I taught at Sheridan for several years under Charles Tadlock. That's where my dad's from. Really loved it. Sheridan, yeah. Great experience at the junior high. And so in the spring, I would take my eighth grade class outside, and we read The Call of the Wild. And students were engaged. If you just create this environment where they want to be there, it was so much fun. Yeah. I have the best memories.

SPEAKER_00 9:38

Yeah, I I've heard that name, Charles Tadlog. You know, dad grew up in Sheridan. He and my uncles, they all played basketball. They all played basketball in college. Dad moved back to Sheridan, you know, later in life. And uh still a lot of close family ties there in Sheridan. My uncle still lives there. Um, but that's you and I are talking like this is Arkansas, right? There's so many small degrees of separation.

SPEAKER_01 10:01

So Coach Tadlock taught me at Charleston, Arkansas.

SPEAKER_02 10:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 10:05

And so when I was looking for a job, he was principal of the junior high. And so he taught me as a teacher how to be a really good evaluator. Because when you would come in his office, it was evaluation time. He'd always sit back and said, Well, you evaluate you. How do you think you did the first? You know, and that's one of the toughest things to do. But he was really very good and loved by his staff in Sheridan.

SPEAKER_00 10:34

Yeah. At what point did you uh realize that you that you thought you might want to influence more than just, you know, the students in your classroom that you might want to take on a broader world?

SPEAKER_01 10:45

I've thought a lot about my path. And it really has there was no one certain point. It was always this internal drive to an education. What's next? Okay. So now that I have my bachelor's, now I need my master's. And so when the timing was right with children, with having children, uh, then I would go on and pursue the next level. Now, when I finished that doctorate, which was a long, arduous process and tough to do with three kids.

SPEAKER_02 11:15

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 11:16

Because when I was at the baseball field with my son, I was reading all the articles and I wasn't really sitting with other moms. I was off in my little lawn chair trying to fit everything in, which was tough. And I thought that's it. That's it for me.

SPEAKER_00 11:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

On the doctorate.

SPEAKER_00 11:33

That's better to do that than live and die with every pitch, I guess. And develop the empires, like a lot of the parents do. Um, so yeah, you went back to school, raising a young family, earned your master's at UCA. Um, what do you think UCA, looking back on it now, what do you think UCA gave you that helped you prepare for leadership and to kind of start your leadership path?

SPEAKER_01 11:53

It really helped me build a network. Um, getting to know people within education. It helped me get very comfortable with at that point learning what a good instructional classroom looked like, what a good teacher does. I still remember some of the activities that we did that I practiced as a teacher. And then from that, learning how to really evaluate what I'm looking for in a strong academic classroom. And it's not about the teaching, it's really about the learning, which is two totally different things. And so I think that drives so much of what we do in education today with the cabinet, with the standards that we set in Bitonville schools. It's our kids learning at the pace we expect them to learn. And so, really, my foundational understanding in education was built at UCA.

SPEAKER_00 12:50

Good. Good. Great to hear that. And that started your uh career trajectory into administration, uh uh Little Rock Mills, Jacksonville, middle school principal, high school, uh Plaski County, and then on to Bryant. What did those early administrative roles um know? I'm sure those were not the easiest of jobs. No, they were not back then. What did that teach you?

SPEAKER_01 13:13

So many things inside and outside the classroom. I will tell you that when I was in Pulaski County and I was there 10 years, it was during an era of union, and that was a new experience coming from Charleston, Arkansas. And so many times I would serve as a teacher, I was approached about joining the union. Um, and then I served on the administrative side, negotiations teams, and all that. It was, it became, you just get to see the real world and the whole politics of the situation. But um I learned um how to deal with diverse groups. I learned how to be an administrator with high poverty schools, specifically when I was at Jacksonville Middle School, and I had about 700 students there. Some of my best memories were built there. And it was you dealt with a lot of crisis situations. I dealt with the police a lot, I dealt with families a lot. Um, I remember this is kind of a funny story, walking in the office, and it was you're scrambling as fast as you can go, as your assistant principals are all day long. Walking in the office, and I had a grandpa waiting there, and he's like, Um, yeah, are you ready? I've got fish to fry. And I said, Well, you just warm up that oil, and I'll be with you as soon as I can get with you. You know, you just learn how to deal with the public and how to be professional and relate to different cultures in such a respectful and appreciative way. And thank goodness for the variety of cultures and all the experiences. I loved that. One of my best presents of all the years was a little brooch that I a student brought me. I worked with him quite a bit, had some of the stones missing. Oh, but it was the gift.

SPEAKER_02 15:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:23

You know, it's the thought that he wants to give me something for Christmas. And that's a memory that I will always have.

SPEAKER_00 15:29

Right. Well, there's another story. Um, I read the story earlier in your career at Jacksonville. You were visiting the home of what you describe as a brilliant student, you and one of your counselors, um, living in extreme poverty. Can you share that story?

SPEAKER_01 15:44

I can. And that counselor was Josie Noble, who was an amazing short little counselor, but fiery. And that was when I was at Jacksonville Middle. And when we entered school, she was quick to tell me, okay, we have this sixth grader. And she has been retained, but look at the standardized test score. And she was above the N through the roof. But she hadn't been retained because of performance. It was because of lack of attendance. And then when we visited the home and we drove up to this trailer, and there were these group of characters on the trailer next to us and said, You don't want to be, you don't want to go in that home. You don't want to approach that. Um, y'all need to get back in your car and leave. And I remember Josie and I, Josie's like, oh, should we? I'm like, we should. Let's do we'll be fine. And that's the country in me. I was probably naive and didn't know we're gonna be just fine. And so approached the door, and you could hear dogs barking. You knew someone was in there and knocking. And I'm like, is there someone in here? And they said, Yeah, there's someone. So eventually they did answer the door. And um, this little girl, it was that you could smell all the animals in the home, but she had fought having lice so large sitting across from her. I could see them crawling. And so Josie and I just said, We will shower you at school every day, we will get you the supplies you need, but you have to get here. Um, we worked with DHS and what I've realized through education and all of the departments, no one's coming to save you. As an educator, no one is coming to save you. It's you have to take the reins, you have to do what you have to do to save kids. And Josie, and I wonder every day where that brilliant girl is. I wonder where she is. And I expect that she rose above all the circumstances with which she had to live.

SPEAKER_00 18:00

How did that experience um impact or maybe even forge your philosophy of education?

SPEAKER_01 18:07

And it just makes your backbone stronger. It's like, you know, that fact that you have to do everything you can for students, um, especially when they want better, when they're willing to do it themselves and they didn't ask for those circumstances. Um, we have to be it's incumbent upon educators. It is our moral obligation to do everything we can. They're they're begging for someone. So um truly, education is a noble profession. I know you've heard people don't do it for the money, but you have to listen to that calling inside. And that's the people that we employ, they have that. And of all my experience, uh, when I came to Bryant after, you know, Pulaski County, I learned the master contract, which was so confusing. When you leave a unionized master contract, I was very confused. What's the law? What's master contract in Bryant? And uh in Bryant, I'm like, I learned what the law was. And then when I moved to Bentonville and started working, of course, I was at the department for a couple of years, but when I moved to Bryant, I was so shocked at the lengths that teachers go to, the hours that they work, and there is no end time for them. It's like they have they do whatever they have to do to win the state championship, to win the cross-country state tra championship, to get the child to read. Whatever it takes is what they're willing to do. And that's basically in a nutshell what an educator has to be. You have to do whatever it takes for whatever the need is.

SPEAKER_00 20:02

It's a lifestyle. It is.

SPEAKER_01 20:04

And it's a it's a very big commitment.

SPEAKER_00 20:07

Yeah. Oh yeah. Like like I said, I my mother taught for 33 years, and um and you know, small Brian was small back then, you know, consider compared to today. But um, yeah, I and I'm really glad going back to the moral obligation. Um, I'm so glad you said that because that's what I was thinking. And in terms of there are so many things that you have to do. You have to be in school X amount of days, you have to teach this, you have to have benchmark scores, all of those things that are black and white, but there's also the moral obligation to care uh for the whole child. And that story, I think, perfectly illustrates that.

SPEAKER_01 20:43

Right. All of those state compliant requirement things that you have to do, that's such a small part of what a real teacher really does. Um, and it's it's the worry that they have over kids. It's the constant obligation in your mind, like I should be working on lesson plans or I should be reading essays. No one tells you about the things in your head that continue long after the 430 dismissal.

SPEAKER_00 21:16

Which of those we've ran them down, you know, Jacksonville, Plasky County, Bryant, uh Department of Education, which of those stops do you think um um impacted your career the most at the time? I'm sure they all did at the time, uh, but is there one spot uh that maybe stands out more than than another?

SPEAKER_01 21:35

I think so. Um probably Bryant, because when I went into Bryant, I was first the principal. And honestly, I expected just to stay principal, just to be principal until all my kids graduated from high school. And Dr. Abernathy called and said, Debbie, you haven't applied for this deputy superintendent, this assistant superintendent job yet. And I'm like, I know, I just got. Here. He said, no, come interview and apply for this job. And I'd finished up my dissertation on the effects of lead certified buildings, which was Bethel. It was the first in the state. And I took on that job. And the strength was that job is that we only had two assistant superintendents. It was HR. And then I did all the academic K312. I learned from really amazing specialists who told me I didn't know anything about elementary, Sandy Shepard. And I didn't, but she was very rude about it. So she got my attention. And so I learned so much in that role, but in learning all the different rows from GT to ALE to special ed to 504. And there's a massive amount of learning. I also gained the confidence that yes, I can do this.

SPEAKER_00 22:59

You gained that confidence and um you gained the attention of uh Mike Poor in Biddenville, right? So eventually that led you. That that career path in Bryant sounds remarkably similar to what it was in Biddenville. The next thing you know, you're going from here to here, right? So what attracted you to Bittenville? What are the circumstances that got you to Northwest Arkansas?

SPEAKER_01 23:20

Well, okay, I told you I was competitive. And so every year I would stand in front of the Bryant school board and I would look at our competitors in the state, and I still remember the bar graph on performance. And we're like that Bittenville, they keep feeding us. Right. Um, and so that was always our goal to get to really outachie them. And so that's how I first met Mike. I'm like, what are y'all doing that we're not doing? Because I was big on stealing from others, and so we brought a team um to Bryant, and from that, PLC's professional learning communities began in Bryant, and we also uh came up to Bentonville to learn about mastery math. We took it back. Um, and so really out the area my sister lived in northwest Arkansas at the time, and I just loved northwest Arkansas. I loved the mountains, I loved the razor bags. Yeah, I graduated from U of A and my bachelor's, and I just wanted to kind of get back to Northwest Arkansas.

SPEAKER_00 24:32

Do you ride bikes?

SPEAKER_01 24:33

I do.

SPEAKER_00 24:33

Yeah. Not mountain bikes. Not mountain bikes, right?

SPEAKER_01 24:35

I don't want to break uh an ankle or a an elk collarbone, all the things that you must break, but I'm not a mountain biker. I would be if I were younger, probably.

SPEAKER_00 24:46

Yeah, we you and I are in the minority. I'm not a mountain biker either. And but everybody, it seems, in Bentonville is a mountain biker.

SPEAKER_01 24:53

We like to bike.

SPEAKER_00 24:54

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 24:55

I like to do yoga, that's gonna be a lifelong commitment for me.

SPEAKER_00 25:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 25:01

And I play with grandbabies. That's what we do.

SPEAKER_00 25:04

So February 2016, you begin as assistant superintendent, and then uh Michael Poor, about three months later, takes a job as the Little Rock School Superintendent. And so you become interim superintendent. Um, what was going through your mind in those three or four months?

SPEAKER_01 25:24

In three or four months, I was like, oh, I'm just I'm so thankful to be here. I honestly had been at the Department of Ed as assistant commissioner, and so I'd had the experience of working during the legislative season, and I wanted to just get politics out of my life. And so moved up here, and I thought I'm just gonna keep my head down, do my job, have this piece, not do politics. I did not apply for the superintendent's job.

SPEAKER_00 25:56

Why not?

SPEAKER_01 25:58

Because I wanted to avoid politics, I didn't want to get in a rat race and try to earn a job necessarily. I didn't want to politic for a job. I just wanted to do my job and be at peace. And so I just did that throughout the summer. I knew I could do the job. I was actually the day I was offered the job, I had met with our Monday morning leadership in the city and set up two appointments for the two national finalists that the board would name that night. We went to the board meeting. Um, Travis Riggs, the board president, came out and said, We want to offer you the job. And will you take it? And I said, Yes.

SPEAKER_00 26:47

That was your reaction.

SPEAKER_01 26:48

Yes, yes, yes, okay. I knew I could do the job. I honestly did not think that was going to happen. I didn't, um, I did not plan for that at all.

SPEAKER_02 26:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:59

And uh he said, Well, you probably want to call home because as soon as we announce it's gonna go live on Twitter.

SPEAKER_02 27:06

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 27:07

And so I called home and uh my son said, Mom, he was home from college. I thought you were, I said, I wasn't, I'll explain when I get home. And so from then on, it's been just trying to keep up with the pace of life in Bitonville.

SPEAKER_00 27:23

Yeah. Well, and I was reading, I was going back and reading some reporting about that time 10 years ago. It was 10 years ago this month, uh, July 2016, to your point. I mean, there was they talked to there were several hundred people who were contacted, and so many people interviewed, and so many, and none of hardly any of them were from Arkansas. They're just there were it was a national search. And so when you get that that message from Travis, um, that we've we've seen all these people, we've talked to all these people. I I guess the point I'm trying to make is because you said you didn't, you knew you could do it, but you you weren't interested in it. What did that teach you about uh just confidence and leadership and knowing that uh I can do this?

SPEAKER_01 28:05

And I have said this many times at women's conferences when I've given talks. Um, you know, the moment I said yes, it hit me. I knew I could do this job. Why did I not just put my name in the hat? And I feel like we've done a really good job um in building an amazing cabinet team. It's just that, as I tell leaders today, if you think there's an interest in the job, be introspective about it and go for the jobs that you want to hold. And um, I would have been happy as assistant superintendent. I could have easily worked for anyone they had chosen. But I knew I could do the job well too. And so part of me, it's advice from I don't know that it was a mistake because it worked out well, but that's rare that that happens. Put your name out there, apply for jobs.

SPEAKER_00 29:07

Okay, so yeah, in six months, you go from assistant superintendent, interim superintendent, full-time superintendent, and now here we are 10 years later, 10-year anniversary as the superintendent and one of the most um high performing school districts in Arkansas, not just the largest, not just the most, but very high performing, very nationally recognized. How do you keep a district that is growing as fast as Bentonville is? How do you maintain that culture of high performance and that profile of high performance?

SPEAKER_01 29:37

It's very intentional. It does not happen by accident. Um, number one, you have to build an amazing leadership team. And it doesn't mean they're all the same. It it I try to be conscious. I'm not trying to hire people like me or people that agree with me all the time. But on our cabinet team, we have driven people who have high standards, a lot of top A. So you can imagine what some of our cabinet meetings are like. Sometimes they're very strictly, yeah. They are. But they're it's high quality and they take ownership. And I'm very conscious about trying to stay within my lane and let them have the ownership of their areas. Um, but also this, you know, in the first couple of years I had the job, my thinking was Bentonville has always been excellent. They're known for the excellence, just don't screw it up.

SPEAKER_00 30:37

Yeah. It's a high bar.

SPEAKER_01 30:39

It's a high bar. And that's a scary place to enter, too. And so um, when I entered, I was not as willing to make uh somewhat risky or aggressive moves. We did everything the same. And what I mean by that, as we'd open another elementary school, it was given the same as all the other schools, the same staff, the same programs. Um that's very that's changed in the last five years. We've made more robust steps. And I will say it's in a very intentional effort to provide specialized parent choice schools. When we opened the International, for example, it was Mary Mae Jones. Um, we had space for about 300 students, and that's a lot of space in one of our schools because we have all of these open spaces in downtown elementary schools where the district began, but our border schools are full. And so we had we wanted to attract rather than force people to downtown schools, we wanted parents to choose if they're working in downtown to bring their kids downtown or we would transport. And so with uh the international, and we went through a process, long process, but they could choose what special identification, and they chose international baccalaureate, which means it's more of a multicultural worldly view of education that uh students learn how to solve problems of the world together, working together. They have two languages all the way up, and so they're full today, and it was a very short time period that they have filled. They can go from IB at elementary to IB at Ruth Barker to IB at Washington Junior High, and then they'll finish at BHS. So we have a K-12 IB program, which is exceptional.

SPEAKER_00 32:50

Okay, and it sounds like you mentioned full. Everything is full, it seems like in the Bentonville schools when you start them, like you started this program and it was full. The response was was immediate. So school choice, uh parent parental choice, and zoning and those issues, it sounds like those dominate a lot of your time.

SPEAKER_01 33:07

They do.

SPEAKER_00 33:08

What are the other critical issues that that maybe keep you awake at night or that you spend most of your time on?

SPEAKER_01 33:14

You know, and sometimes it's good problems I wake up trying to solve, but the superintendency is a restless job. Um, when you wake up at two and think, and you're solving problems, that's that's when I solve all my problems. Uh, for example, you might have heard this was a really big year for us. Um, Alice Walton visited our IgnaT professional studies program. It truly is a program, and nationally we've what we've looked at professional programs, and I don't see a program that surpasses this one. It's very unique. Um, but she visited the foundation had supported IGNAT since the beginning 10 years ago, and with equipment. And so she had heard the good results because when you take a grant from the Walton Foundation, you also provide really good data regularly. Um, and they had brought in the number of certificates, a high performance, the good response from all of our business partners. And so she walked through and sat down with principal Jessica Emble and some of the leadership and said, uh, this is a marvelous program. What can we do to continue this? And I said, we want to give us, give our kids the opportunity to learn alongside the doctors and the nurses and all the employees in the new Bentonville healthcare campus we hear you might be building.

SPEAKER_02 34:54

Yeah, more space.

SPEAKER_01 34:55

Yeah. And well, it was really the hardest, the biggest challenge in running a program like that is giving kids the network, the internship. And that's what we went for. It's like, will you give our kids this opportunity? Build it in as you build a hospital. And she said, How about I just build you a building on the campus? And I'm like, We'll take floor.

SPEAKER_02 35:20

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:22

You know, and it's so expensive to build.

SPEAKER_00 35:25

Yeah. It's essentially a third high school. It was she's doing it it is.

SPEAKER_01 35:30

In fact, we had in 2030, because of growth, we would have to open, we'd have to build a professional studies high school. And we had already looked at all the opportunities. What can we do? And that was really what we could do that was most affordable. And we wouldn't rebuild all the athletic programs. We would pull kids off. And so that would open in 2030. And what she did, and she said, it has to be a regional program because you have to provide this other opportunity, this opportunity for other districts in the region. And we said we can do that. And it will open with a capacity of eventually 1,500 kids. And it does take the place of that high school. And we will include other regions within the program, and it will be an Igna program.

SPEAKER_00 36:19

And that opens when on track of 2029, 2029. Wow. Yeah, I I I think um obviously that's been reported and people are talking about, but I don't I don't think the impact of that is is fully understood uh about what that's going to do for um, you know, you mentioned Bentonville, but also, you know, P Ridge and and Gravit and some other school districts around Benton County, uh, of what that expanded site is going to do.

SPEAKER_01 36:43

I I think it's gonna have a massive impact on the state and the regional states because as I grow older and I see the need for specialists in the area, that's the point is bringing high-quality specialists to our Arkansas and having it in our back door is a gift, if especially if you have the opportunity to live in this region.

SPEAKER_00 37:09

Yeah, and we we think about it in those terms um through the UCA lens of you know, about a little under 20% of all of our students are on some sort of health care related degree path. So in our in our mind, I mean the the the students that were graduating and preparing in in healthcare roles, where are the jobs? They're in Northwest Arkansas. So it it impacts the entire state uh that the healthcare education um, because the healthcare uh runaway in in Northwest Arkansas is um is pretty long, and there's a lot more healthcare investment that's coming, uh particularly in Benton County. So all right, let's talk about the future of education. We know that um you know artificial intelligence, you know, will change education. How do you think uh AI should change education? What are the conversations like in your administrative team about the impact of AI?

SPEAKER_01 38:02

Um it's funny. We have our cabinet next week and it centers around AI.

SPEAKER_02 38:07

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 38:08

We have to maintain human centric operations. We're about humans. We always have been, we always will be. Nothing rings truer than when COVID came. Right before COVID, we had all these big, I won't name them, national companies that said uh computerized education will take the place of teachers in the classroom. Never gonna happen. Even with AI, that's never going to happen, and we never want that to happen. We experienced what putting kids on computers full-time without human interaction is during COVID. And nationally, you saw performance sink. And that will be true. Everyone is not created to work on a computer and learn that way. Some are, some are talented and can do that. So uh we will remain very human-centered. AI is definitely a tool that can speed up our processes, that can ease a lot of the simple jobs that we do. And we will talk about this as our cabinet, but our staff needs to hear from us. It's not cheating to use this tool that we've purchased, which is an in-house tool. We have policy present. You do have to put safeguards in place, which we have for kids, but we have to start doing a better job communicating. For example, um, and we have it color-coded, red and green, like it and yellow. But if it's red, no AI. This is completely independent. And we do have to be conscious and communicate that. Um, but there are some tools where it can be and you're smart to use it. Our kids will graduate being expected to know how to use all the AI tools. Um, in addition to that, our kids will graduate and their skills to create AI will be needed. And we had the unique opportunity to this summer to run an AI camp. And it was Stanford in MIT instructors. They were PhD students and professors that came down. Uh, we opened it for a hundred and I think 140 kids, and it was filled.

SPEAKER_02 40:35

Full.

SPEAKER_01 40:36

It was full without a doubt. And uh with the help of grant, it was a regional program again, and it normally would have been $1,500 per student, but that was paid with the help of a Walton grant. But the beauty was you walked in that room, rooms, we held it in Bentonville, and it was middle school up. And if you could see the engagement on the part of the kids, it was so positive. It was so engaging, they were excited, they were creating. Now their professors looked like they were 12 years old, but they were magical because they knew AI very deeply. They could answer questions and they related things back from which I even learned. Um, I would have been in the fifth grade, the middle school class at the beginning, but it went all the way up to master's level. Our teachers, regional teachers, could be in the program. We had about 48 teachers in there, and they were in all different stages as well. Yeah. And it was a beautiful thing to see students learning alongside teachers at the same level. And that's how we have to approach this because it's new. And our brains work and learn similarly. And so it's okay that you're learning alongside the kids in this process.

SPEAKER_00 42:07

I'm sure that you don't you don't like for optimism, but did that experience give you optimism about this generation of students even going down to the the kindergarten level? I mean, they're going to need new skills that they that they didn't need 20 years ago.

SPEAKER_01 42:22

I have never lacked an opt-optimism for students. I'm telling you, they are so bright. They are thirsty for advanced learning. They are generally healthier than we are, they make better choices than we do. When I'm I'm talking about as I watch my 30-year-old kids, you know, they'll get there. They may not all be there as 16-year-olds, but they're going to get there. But they are the foundation they have with education is just so superb. They'll be able to do all this. Yeah. I and when you talk about the healthcare field, is I will willingly go to any of our graduates in the medical field today and have complete confidence that they're going to seek the right treatment for me.

SPEAKER_00 43:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:16

I have great confidence in that.

SPEAKER_00 43:18

Sure. Um, let's go back to when what advice would you give someone today? Let's say there's an eighth-grade English teacher at Jacksonville Middle School or Sheridan uh right now who wants to go back to school, who wants to go back for postgraduate uh learning, who wants to grow their leadership profile. What advice would you give someone doing that at UCA today who hopes to lead like you're leading one day?

SPEAKER_01 43:45

First, I would look for all the opportunities in education because there are many people, you're not all just you're not a teacher. Um, speech, behavioral therapist. There are so So many different jobs within education. So kind of um maybe shadow those different jobs and look for the specialty that you want to um pursue. If you don't know, just start somewhere. Start with administration. That's what I did. I had no clue what I wanted to do. I really didn't. But you find your way. That's what I tell a lot of our graduates. You have to start. Don't linger so long trying to find the perfect thing because you won't begin as the boss. And all of those experiences along the way are necessary to be effective in any future role you have. So wherever you are, if you're in Jacksonville right now, live in the moment, learn from the kids that you have, and then pursue that education for the next degree and keep pursuing future opportunities as well as they open up. Look at all the opportunities that are available because there are a million. And then don't be afraid to jump into that. It might be a risk, but we've all been told no in interviews. And that's okay too.

SPEAKER_00 45:14

Yeah, it's, you know, go for a job, and everybody's going to get told no for a job, but uh, it's all part of your experience that you can stack on top of one another. We mentioned earlier in the show that you know, school's right around the corner, right? You know, it is the summer after all, and it's here. And uh I would imagine the way to be an effective leader is um you've got to recharge in the summer, right? Have you had a good summer? Have you been able to step away a little bit?

SPEAKER_01 45:38

Yeah, I'm still in my Nantucket vibe. So I had not been, but my husband and I took a short little trip to Nantucket, and it was so peaceful and great seafood and different beaches. We just like to see different cultures all over. And so that was our little getaway this summer.

SPEAKER_00 45:58

Nantucket. Okay. When is the first day of school?

SPEAKER_01 46:01

I don't know. Yeah. I work all year long. Um that's a that's a true question. Yeah, it's in August.

SPEAKER_00 46:08

I think it's in August too. Yeah, I I don't, I'm not aware of it either. But I know for you, I mean, you're in school, like you say, I mean, you're there's not a first day, but how do you how does the superintendent of Bentonville Schools spend the first day of school? Do you or do you try to move around? Are you in the admin office? What does it look like?

SPEAKER_01 46:24

All of our cabinet is they choose schools. We break up all the schools because we have 24 different schools and others. We have all kinds of programs now. Um, and so we split up and we're out there um on bus duty in the morning. The more schools you can hit and see the faces and step foot into a classroom and meet the new teachers. And really, I never want to see any of the staff intimidated. Oh my gosh, that's a superintendent, I better not mess up. I want them to say, see that we're there to support. And if we see there's some place we can step in, and uh so and there will always be one or two that are upset if we can step in and support kids as they're leaving home for the first time, that's what our job is. And so we try to support all the schools all year long, but especially as they're getting all the kids in routines.

SPEAKER_00 47:22

You mentioned teachers and reminded me of a question I wanted to get to. Teacher recruitment and affordable housing. Those are not Bentonville issues, those are national issues, those are those are issues different parts of the country. But why has why have you why has the district invested so much um uh energy there for those two things?

SPEAKER_01 47:42

It's because about it might be four years now, um, during the summertime, that's when we do a lot of the hiring. I started, there were three different employees we hired that took contracts hired by the board and then had to turn around and resign because of housing.

SPEAKER_02 48:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:02

It was it it was shocking to me because generally if you get a contract in Bentonville, you're coming. And so I we worked closely with the accelerate, with the Accelerate Foundation and Jeff at the time, and I'm like, I you I don't know the answer to this, but we have a housing problem. And so that that began a discussion which we held over eight months, and my CFO and my HR set the three of us sat down together with Jeff and tried to come up with a solution. And we were all like, This is we're never gonna get this. This is never, let's just take a chance. Let's see if we could, could we? And so um it was a long process that became political as everything does. But uh we now are taking applications for staff housing, and they will move in from August through, I mean through October through December. That's when they'll start moving in. And they are we have 42-bedroom cottages, amazing location, right in front of the Bentonville Community Center, right on bike trails, right next to Mercy Clinic. Two of the 40 cottages will be Mercy Nuns that come over, which is close to my heart because my mom worked at Mercy for 40 years. After school, I would walk over and eat Jolly Ranchers at uh until my mom got off work. We'd walk in Fort Smith over to Mercy, to the old one downtown. And um, Sister Judith Marie would always visit the family. And so it's just, it's just kind of it's full circle for me.

SPEAKER_00 49:52

Well, and it's exciting um for me to when you talk about that project, the housing project. You know, I I reported on that when it was announced and uh when I was at the business journal. And I love because it's happened a billion times up here, I love when things are announced and they put out the rendering and this is what we're gonna do. And then, you know, four, five, or eight or whatever years later, it's happened. It's exactly how to see it go from concept to the construction to the opening and to see it come to fruition is uh so exciting. But I'm sure you're a lot more excited about it than I am. I am that's gonna be impactful for uh the district.

SPEAKER_01 50:29

And when you go back to being human-centered, here's what I'm most anxious to hear. I want to hear the teacher stories. Like I'm thinking of one preschool teacher right now. Every time we and we have staff child care that we've started. Yes, and it's there's a waiting list. It's amazing. It's as cheap as we can do child care, but it's an amazing program. It's brilliant. And there's a teacher that's in our child care program that would ask us all the time when's an application, when are we going to open applications? Because she needed more affordable care, um, housing. Yeah. And so I'm interested to hear the personal stories, how their families are able to get into the program and live there, and it helps their life become easier to afford. And that's the point. So I can't wait to hear each one of those stories as you move in.

SPEAKER_00 51:24

I know another, another great story um from Bitonville School. So uh Debbie, again, uh kept you almost an hour. I know that's a little bit longer than I told you, but I really appreciate you spending time with us. It's been um truly made me kind of appreciate even more the uh uh uh the the way that you approach leadership and service here at Bentonville. So congratulations on all that you accomplished and really um thank you for representing UCA as one of the state's uh uh leaders in education and throughout your career. So uh hopefully this won't be the last conversation we have.

SPEAKER_01 51:56

Oh well, thank UCA for helping build my path that I could do this. So I'm I'm education truly is the foundation for everything that you can do. So thank you for that.

SPEAKER_00 52:07

Right. Well, as the as again, as the son of public school educators, I agree uh 100%. So all right, that is all for this edition of Central to NWA. As always, we appreciate you tuning in. Until next time, go bears. That's it for this episode of Central to NWA, a UCA podcast. I'm Paul Gatling, Senior Director of Northwest Arkansas Engagement for the University of Central Arkansas. Be sure to subscribe to the show and follow UCA on all the appropriate social media. I'll see you next time on Central to NWA.