SE Kentucky News

There were 320 ninth grade students enrolled in Clay County schools in the 2022-23 school year, 9.9% less than the previous year, according to the Kentucky Department of Education.

Clay County High School welcomed most of the ninth grade students in the county, registering 268 students.

Within Clay County schools, the highest student population was found in ninth grade, with the smallest class sizes seen in preschool.

Statewide, Clay County ranked 57th in enrollment numbers. It was also ranked 57th the year before.

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	# of 9th Grade Students Enrolled	% of Student Body	Total Enrollment
Clay County High School	268	32.8%	818
Horse Creek Learning Center	52	27.2%	191