SE Kentucky News

There were 10 Asian students enrolled in Bell County schools in the 2022-23 school year, a 11.1% increase from the nine Asian students in the previous school year, according to the Kentucky Department of Education.

Data showed that Bell County welcomed a total of 4,652 students during the 2022-23 school year. Among them, Asian students comprised 0.2% of the student body to be the second least represented ethnicity in the county.

Among the 11 schools in Bell County, Middlesboro High School recorded the highest enrollment of Asian students in the 2022-23 school year, with a total of six students, making up 1.6% 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 Asian Students Enrolment	Total Enrollment
Bell Central School Center	0.2%	536
Yellow Creek School Center	0.3%	636
Middlesboro Middle School	0.3%	317
Middlesboro High School	1.6%	375