Jonesboro, AR – Jonesboro Right Now – Although he’s not new to the Northeast Arkansas Career and Technical Center (NEACTC), Garrett Barnes is hoping to bring a refined vision to the director’s chair, prioritizing concurrent credit, industry connections, and keeping local talent in Northeast Arkansas.

Barnes officially became NEACTC director July 1. He had been the assistant director since 2018 under former director Todd Rhodes, who taught Barnes in fifth grade at Westside Middle School.

“Oddly enough, I like the smell of the school when I’ve been away from it for a little bit and come back in,” Barnes said, reflecting on the transition. “It isn’t school until our staff returns, and most especially, our students return. Until then, we’re just a building.”

As director, Barnes is tasked with not just maintaining the center’s momentum, but also expanding its relevance in a shifting educational landscape.

JRN sat down with Barnes to learn more about his past and how it has influenced his career, and how he plans to move NEACTC forward heading into the new school year.

From Law School to Educational Roots

Barnes’ path to education didn’t begin with a teaching degree. Armed with a management degree from Arkansas State University, Barnes had set his sights on law school. However, he explained that studying for the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) sparked an unexpected pivot.

“It was really the LSAT questions that I found to be really boring to me,” he recalled. “There’s 14 birds on three rows of fences… this many are blue, this many are purple… I said, ‘You know what, I know this is just part of it, but it’s just not for me.'”

Encouraged by his parents, Jake and Barbara, and inspired by his grandfather, Elmer Barnes, who was a teacher in Bono, Barnes tried substitute teaching in 2011. He started in a fifth-grade reading class at Westside, and from that point, he knew he had found his calling.

Since that day, Barnes said he has never looked back. In fact, he noted that since starting his educational career, he has “never dreaded a Monday,” calling the career shift an absolute joy for himself and his family.

The “C4” Strategy and the Arkansas LEARNS Act

Looking ahead to the 2026-2027 school year, Barnes said he is focused on what he calls the “C4” approach: Credentials, Concurrent Credit, Communicate, and Connect.

A driver of this vision is the Arkansas LEARNS Act, specifically the “R” for Readiness. Under new state accountability metrics, a major portion of a high school’s report card is based on the number of students graduating with a diploma of merit or distinction.

“We have never been more relevant, in my opinion, than now,” Barnes said. “That focus has been refined to the accelerated pathways, and what that entails is high-wage, high-demand credentials and concurrent credit.”

To achieve this, Barnes is flipping the script on senior outreach.

Instead of waiting until the end of the year to survey graduating students, NEACTC will conduct an intake process this August to categorize seniors into the “3 Es” – whether they plan to Enlist, Enroll, or Employ. Barnes said this early data will allow the center to bring in the right military, post-secondary, and industry recruiters immediately, connecting students to targeted opportunities months before graduation.

Making NEACTC a ‘Status Symbol’

Beyond academic metrics, Barnes has an ambitious goal for NEACTC: He wants to make attending the center a premier choice in Northeast Arkansas.

“My goal is to make attending NEACTC a status symbol, not just for students, but for their parents as well,” Barnes explains. “It’s not that, ‘Oh, we didn’t know where to put you, or you’re just not cut out for college.’ No, if you want to be successful and you want to make big bucks immediately after high school… NEACTC is the place that you need and have to go to.”

A key selling point for this goal is academic weight. Barnes said due to recent changes under the LEARNS Act, all concurrent credit courses at NEACTC are now weighted on a 5.0 scale. This means top-performing students aiming for valedictorian status can elevate their GPAs while learning industrial technology, nursing, or advanced manufacturing.

Ultimately, Barnes views the center’s mission as a crucial component of keeping Craighead County’s economy going. By partnering with the Jonesboro Chamber of Commerce and Jonesboro Unlimited, he aims to supply local businesses with the exact workforce they need to expand.

“We don’t want someone getting to working age and having their roots pulled out from under them because there isn’t an opportunity here,” Barnes says. “If we lose our local residents and our talent, we lose what it is to be Jonesboro or Bono or Lake City.”