SE Kentucky News

The majority of students in Bell County schools were white in the 2022-23 school year, according to the Kentucky Department of Education.

Of the 4,947 students attending Bell County schools, 93.5% were white. African American students were the second most represented ethnicity, making up 3%.

In the previous school year, white students were also the most common group in Bell County schools, representing 93.2% of the student body.

Bell County High School had the most diverse student body in the county, which included African American, American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Hispanic or Latino, multiracial, and white.

In the 2022-23 school year, the total number of students enrolled in schools in the county increased by 5.2% compared to the previous 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	Most Prevalent	Percent of Total Student Body	Total Enrollment
Bell County High School	White	97.2%	772
Yellow Creek School Center	White	97.1%	655
Bell Central School Center	White	98.4%	555
Middlesboro Elementary School	White	111.6%	545
Middlesboro High School	White	88.5%	393
Page School Center	White	98.1%	363
Right Fork School Center	White	98.6%	217
Lone Jack School Center	White	97.6%	205
Frakes School Center	White	95.7%	141
Middlesboro Alternative School	White	60.7%	89