East Pennyroyal News

There were 25 African American students enrolled in Rockcastle County schools in the 2022-23 school year, a 38.9% increase from the 18 African American students in the previous school year, according to the Kentucky Department of Education.

Data showed that Rockcastle County welcomed a total of 3,051 students during the 2022-23 school year. Among them, African American students comprised 0.8% of the student body to be the third least represented ethnicity in the county.

Among the six schools in Rockcastle County, Mt. Vernon Elementary School recorded the highest enrollment of African American students in the 2022-23 school year, with a total of 12 students, making up 1.7% 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
Brodhead Elementary School	0.6%	534
Rockcastle Academy for Academic Achievement	1.5%	67
Rockcastle County Middle School	0.5%	618
Mt. Vernon Elementary School	1.7%	691
Rockcastle County High School	0.6%	868
Roundstone Elementary School	0.4%	273