East Pennyroyal News

There were 209 African American students enrolled in Marion County schools in the 2022-23 school year, a 1.5% increase from the 206 African American students in the previous school year, according to the Kentucky Department of Education.

Data showed that Marion County welcomed a total of 3,534 students during the 2022-23 school year. Among them, African American students comprised 5.9% of the student body to be the third most represented ethnicity in the county.

Among the eight schools in Marion County, Marion County High School recorded the highest enrollment of African American students in the 2022-23 school year, with a total of 46 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
Calvary Elementary School	3.2%	250
Hugh C. Spalding Academy	5.3%	187
Glasscock Elementary School	8.3%	508
Marion County Knight Academy	6.6%	578
Marion County Middle School	6.1%	460
West Marion Elementary School	0.7%	431
Lebanon Elementary School	8.5%	399
Marion County High School	6.4%	721