SE Kentucky News

There were 62 African American students enrolled in Whitley County schools in the 2022-23 school year, a 24% increase from the 50 African American students in the previous school year, according to the Kentucky Department of Education.

Data showed that Whitley County welcomed a total of 9,116 students during the 2022-23 school year. Among them, African American students comprised 0.7% of the student body to be the third least represented ethnicity in the county.

Among the 18 schools in Whitley County, Williamsburg City School recorded the highest enrollment of African American students in the 2022-23 school year, with a total of 14 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
Corbin Educational Center	5.1%	79
Corbin Preschool	1.4%	148
Corbin Elementary School	1%	399
Corbin High School	0.3%	882
Corbin Middle School	0.7%	696
Corbin Primary School	0.6%	832
Corbin School of Innovation	0.4%	241
Colonel Academy	0.6%	178
Boston Elementary School	0.5%	215
Whitley Central Intermediate School	0.8%	495
Whitley County East Elementary School	0.3%	288
Oak Grove Elementary School	0.5%	762
Pleasant View Elementary School	0.4%	278
Whitley County North Elementary School	0.5%	368
Whitley County Central Primary School	0.4%	530
Whitley County High School	0.5%	1,067
Whitley County Middle School	0.5%	620
Williamsburg City School	1.5%	926