West Pennyroyal News

There were 312 African American students enrolled in Simpson County schools in the 2022-23 school year, a 1% increase from the 309 African American students in the previous school year, according to the Kentucky Department of Education.

Data showed that Simpson County welcomed a total of 3,426 students during the 2022-23 school year. Among them, African American students comprised 9.1% of the student body to be the second most represented ethnicity in the county.

Among the six schools in Simpson County, Franklin-Simpson High School recorded the highest enrollment of African American students in the 2022-23 school year, with a total of 96 students, making up 11% of the school's total student body.

Despite escaping some of the pandemic's educational disruptions, Kentucky's achievement gaps have remained an issue since 2019. In the eighth-grade reading assessments, for example, Hispanic students scored eight points lower than their white peers, and the gap reached 15 points in math. Black students fared even worse, falling more than 20 points behind and facing a failure rate nearly double that of their white counterparts.

School name	% of African American Students Enrolment	Total Enrollment
Franklin-Simpson High School West Campus	11.4%	158
Franklin Elementary School	7%	387
Franklin-Simpson Middle School	11%	748
Franklin-Simpson High School	11%	870
Lincoln Elementary School	7.5%	482
Simpson Elementary School	6.8%	781