Casey Motl announced he is seeking re-election to the Arkadelphia Public School District Board of Directors Zone 1.

Motl is interim Dean of the Sutton School of Social Sciences at Ouachita Baptist University. The Arkadelphia resident has served as faculty at Ouachita’s Department of History since 2006.

“Serving as a member of the APSD Board of Directors has been one of the most fulfilling and influential experiences of my life,” Motl said. “It has taught me the meaning of effective collaboration and leadership, and those lessons have shaped my habits in every arena of my life. I have accomplished nothing alone, of course; my Board colleagues, APSD leadership, our employees, our community advocates, and our students have partnered with me over the last few years to restore stability and prosperity in Arkadelphia Public Schools, and we have already seen many fruits from our labors to date.”

A Texas “transplant” to southwestern Arkansas, Motl has a doctorate from Texas A&M (2006), and prior to that earned a master’s degree from the University of North Texas in Denton in 2000, as well as a bachelor’s degree from Texas A&M (1994). All of Motl’s degrees are in the discipline of history.

Motl was raised in Bryan/College Station, Texas, and graduated from Bryan High School in 1989. He had a “brief but entertaining stint” as a professional disc jockey in that area after finishing college, then moved to the Dallas/Fort Worth area in 1995 to spend the next three years teaching social studies at Garland High School.

Motl has served on the school board since 2013 and is currently board president, presiding over meetings. “The voters blessed me with the opportunity to serve our community and its students; for the last three years my board colleagues have further graced me with the opportunity to serve as Board President, a position I have found most rewarding as we have worked together to build a brighter future for Arkadelphia’s young learners.

“I am running for re-election because the district is now undertaking a strategic planning process that will define the vision and objectives of Arkadelphia Public Schools for the foreseeable future — including capital improvement projects with which I have already been intimately involved at all planning stages,” Motl said. “Together we have built an effective leadership team in APSD, we have improved employee compensation (though more remains to be done), and we are building facilities that will make our district the envy of the region. 

“We also face the challenge of recovering from learning losses imposed by the adverse conditions of the pandemic. As a professional educator, I have the background and training necessary to contribute to the recovery process and get our students back on track toward academic success. In short, the district has critical work that is not yet complete, and I have both the experience and the knowledge to move our ongoing projects to successful completion.” 

Motl’s wife of 24 years, Lori, is the director of admissions counseling at Ouachita and a 1992 OBU alumnus. They have three children, all of whom are either attending or have graduated from Arkadelphia Public Schools. Their eldest, Ryan, graduated from Arkadelphia High School in 2018 and OBU in 2021, and is now living in Denver, Colorado, with his wife Mattie and their baby daughter Miriam. Their daughter Sydney is a 2020 AHS graduate and now a sophomore English major at Ouachita. Their youngest son Joshua is a senior at AHS, where he is a member of the Badger Pride Marching Band. “Folks will likely know him from the state champion show from the fall: he was the rockin’ saxophone soloist in the final movement of the program,” Motl said.

Motl is an active member of the Arkadelphia and Ouachita communities. “I am privileged to wear many hats” in those communities, “but perhaps most visibly I serve as the public address announcer for Ouachita Tiger football and Tiger and Lady Tiger basketball at Ouachita.”

Motl and his family are longstanding members of First Baptist Church in Arkadelphia.

“The Motls have most definitely found in our time here that Arkadelphia is indeed a great place to call home and raise a family,” he said. “I am asking the voters of Zone 1 to let me finish the job they asked me to do in 2013. I stand ready to serve.”