SE Kentucky News

There were 95 African American students enrolled in Laurel County schools in the 2022-23 school year, a 20.8% decrease from the 120 African American students in the previous school year, according to the Kentucky Department of Education.

Data showed that Laurel County welcomed a total of 10,399 students during the 2022-23 school year. Among them, African American students comprised 0.9% of the student body to be the third least represented ethnicity in the county.

Among the 18 schools in Laurel County, South Laurel High School recorded the highest enrollment of African American students in the 2022-23 school year, with a total of 16 students, making up 1.3% 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
East Bernstadt Elementary School	1.1%	538
London Elementary School	1%	603
McDaniel Learning Center	1.1%	89
Wyan-Pine Grove Elementary School	0.8%	471
Bush Elementary School	0.5%	559
South Laurel Middle School	1.2%	1,057
Laurel County Day Treatment	2.7%	222
Camp Ground Elementary School	1.4%	345
Colony Elementary School	0.7%	424
Hazel Green Elementary School	0.5%	398
Hunter Hills Elementary School	0.5%	659
North Laurel Middle School	0.6%	1,089
North Laurel High School	0.9%	1,385
South Laurel High School	1.3%	1,222
Sublimity Elementary School	1.1%	351
Cold Hill Elementary School	1%	297