West Pennyroyal News

There were 52 African American students enrolled in Monroe County schools in the 2022-23 school year, a 15.6% increase from the 45 African American students in the previous school year, according to the Kentucky Department of Education.

Data showed that Monroe County welcomed a total of 1,940 students during the 2022-23 school year. Among them, African American students comprised 2.7% of the student body to be the third most represented ethnicity in the county.

Among the five schools in Monroe County, Tompkinsville Elementary School recorded the highest enrollment of African American students in the 2022-23 school year, with a total of 28 students, making up 6.4% 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
Gamaliel Elementary School	1.3%	300
Monroe County Middle School	2.5%	397
Joe Harrison Carter	1.1%	270
Tompkinsville Elementary School	6.4%	435
Monroe County High School	1.3%	538