East Pennyroyal News

There were five American Indian or Alaska Native students enrolled in Rockcastle County schools in the 2022-23 school year, the same number as 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, American Indian or Alaska Native students comprised 0.2% of the student body to be the least represented ethnicity in the county.

Among the six schools in Rockcastle County, Mt. Vernon Elementary School recorded the highest enrollment of American Indian or Alaska Native students in the 2022-23 school year, with a total of four students, making up 0.6% 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 American Indian or Alaska Native Students Enrolment	Total Enrollment
Mt. Vernon Elementary School	0.6%	691
Roundstone Elementary School	0.4%	273