West Pennyroyal News

There were 12 African American students enrolled in Metcalfe County schools in the 2022-23 school year, a 29.4% decrease from the 17 African American students in the previous school year, according to the Kentucky Department of Education.

Data showed that Metcalfe County welcomed a total of 1,548 students during the 2022-23 school year. Among them, African American students comprised 0.8% of the student body to be the second least represented ethnicity in the county.

Among the three schools in Metcalfe County, Metcalfe County High School recorded the highest enrollment of African American students in the 2022-23 school year, with a total of five students, making up 1.1% 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
Metcalfe County Middle School	0.8%	383
Metcalfe County High School	1.1%	474
Metcalfe County Elementary School	0.6%	691