East Pennyroyal News

There were 375 Hispanic or Latino students enrolled in Wayne County schools in the 2022-23 school year, a 9.3% increase from the 343 Hispanic or Latino students in the previous school year, according to the Kentucky Department of Education.

Data showed that Wayne County welcomed a total of 3,468 students during the 2022-23 school year. Among them, Hispanic or Latino students comprised 10.8% of the student body to be the second most represented ethnicity in the county.

Among the eight schools in Wayne County, Wayne County High School recorded the highest enrollment of Hispanic or Latino students in the 2022-23 school year, with a total of 110 students, making up 11.2% 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 Hispanic or Latino Students Enrolment	Total Enrollment
Wayne County Middle School	11.9%	707
Wayne County Learning Academy	13.1%	61
Lake Cumberland Youth Development Center	16.9%	71
Monticello Elementary School	10%	658
Wayne County High School	11.2%	984
Walker Early Learning Center	10.6%	432
Bell Elementary School	9.7%	505