East Pennyroyal News

There were two American Indian or Alaska Native students enrolled in Russell County schools in the 2022-23 school year, a 71.4% decrease from the seven American Indian or Alaska Native students in the previous school year, according to the Kentucky Department of Education.

Data showed that Russell County welcomed a total of 3,206 students during the 2022-23 school year. Among them, American Indian or Alaska Native students comprised 0.1% of the student body to be the least represented ethnicity in the county.

Russell Springs Elementary School and Russell County Middle School was the only school in the county which enrolled American Indian or Alaska Native students in the 2022-23 school year.

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
Russell Springs Elementary School	0.1%	671
Russell County Middle School	0.1%	708