SE Kentucky News

There were 20 African American students enrolled in Letcher County schools in the 2022-23 school year, a 25% increase from the 16 African American students in the previous school year, according to the Kentucky Department of Education.

Data showed that Letcher County welcomed a total of 3,322 students during the 2022-23 school year. Among them, African American students comprised 0.6% of the student body to be the third least represented ethnicity in the county.

Among the 10 schools in Letcher County, Martha Jane Potter Elementary School recorded the highest enrollment of African American students in the 2022-23 school year, with a total of five students, making up 1.5% 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
Jenkins Independent School	0.5%	547
Letcher Elementary & Middle School	0.3%	390
Letcher County Alternative Education Center	3.2%	31
Letcher County Central High School	0.5%	804
Fleming Neon Middle School	1.1%	178
Cowan Elementary School	0.3%	286
Martha Jane Potter Elementary School	1.5%	332
West Whitesburg Elementary School	0.5%	444
Whitesburg Middle School	0.6%	177