Jonesboro, AR – Jonesboro Right Now – Leaders of the community and Nettleton Public School system gathered Tuesday to celebrate the grand opening of the district’s new Fox Meadow Gymnasium with a ribbon-cutting.

In addition to being used as a meeting place and physical education space, the new gym will be used to host athletics events for the district, evening and weekend events, and community-wide events. It features bleachers for parents to watch games, a space for concessions, a stage, and a walkway connecting Fox Meadow Elementary to the Fox Meadow School of Creative Media.

“Our parents are excited, our teachers are excited, our principals are excited,” Dr. Karen Curtner, Nettleton Public Schools superintendent, told JRN. “We think that it’s connecting and tying both of the schools together so that if bonds us together more as a family.”

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The facility cost around $8.5 million to $9 million and was financed through bond restructuring, Curtner said.

School leaders said the project allowed the two schools to have the necessary gym space, which they said had been previously lacking. About a year ago, the district opened a new gym near University Heights Elementary (UHE).

“This completes new buildings that have been going up across the district,” Nettleton Public Schools athletic director Tommy Raffo told JRN. “Everything started at UHE and now it’s moved over here.”

Raffo noted that in the next few weeks, the district would be hosting an elementary volleyball tournament in the new gym, with tickets to be entirely cashless.

During the ceremony, Jonesboro mayor Harold Copenhaver thanked school leaders for “investing in our youth.”

“I see the availability of opportunity that is here in this community,” Copenhaver said. “This is just another addition to allow your students, our youth, and our residents of this community to see your investment in Nettleton Public Schools to see is making in Jonesboro and Northeast Arkansas, because it is an opportunity for a lifetime.”

The gym is just latest in a series of planned improvements for the district.

In November 2025, voters approved a 4.8-mil increase to the district’s millage rate, which will fund various projects across the district, including new classrooms, expanding the district’s band and choir classrooms, a new high school arena, and a performing arts center for the elementary and intermediate schools.

Curtner said the district was working on completing the necessary architecture and engineering paperwork. Once that is finished, it will be sent to the state for approval, with the goal to begin the projects in January, she said.

“Our community supports our school district,” Curtner said. “It’s very obvious that they do, because we did pass the millage last year, and they want us to continue to grow, which we are.”

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