East Pennyroyal News

There were 49 Hispanic or Latino students enrolled in McCreary County schools in the 2022-23 school year, a 14% increase from the 43 Hispanic or Latino students in the previous school year, according to the Kentucky Department of Education.

Data showed that McCreary County welcomed a total of 2,954 students during the 2022-23 school year. Among them, Hispanic or Latino students comprised 1.7% of the student body to be the second most represented ethnicity in the county.

Among the four schools in McCreary County, Pine Knot Intermediate School recorded the highest enrollment of Hispanic or Latino students in the 2022-23 school year, with a total of 17 students, making up 1.9% 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
McCreary Central High School	1.8%	796
McCreary County Middle School	1.4%	651
Pine Knot Intermediate School	1.9%	902
Whitley City Elementary School	1.5%	605