SE Kentucky News

There were 111 African American students enrolled in Perry County schools in the 2022-23 school year, a 8.8% increase from the 102 African American students in the previous school year, according to the Kentucky Department of Education.

Data showed that Perry County welcomed a total of 5,168 students during the 2022-23 school year. Among them, African American students comprised 2.1% of the student body to be the second most represented ethnicity in the county.

Among the 13 schools in Perry County, Roy G. Eversole Elementary School recorded the highest enrollment of African American students in the 2022-23 school year, with a total of 25 students, making up 5.2% 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 African American Students Enrolment	Total Enrollment
Hazard High School	6.3%	316
Hazard Middle School	5.4%	316
Roy G. Eversole Elementary School	5.2%	483
Buckhorn School	0.6%	357
Learning Academy	5.2%	96
Perry County Alternative School	4.8%	21
East Perry County Elementary School	1%	715
Perry County Central High School	1.8%	932
Leatherwood Elementary School	0.9%	109
Robert W. Combs Elementary School	1.4%	418
Viper Elementary School	0.4%	259
West Perry Elementary School	1.1%	851