SE Bluegrass News

The majority of students in Powell County schools were white in the 2022-23 school year, according to the Kentucky Department of Education.

Of the 2,642 students attending Powell County schools, 95.5% were white. Hispanic or Latino students were the second most represented ethnicity, making up 2.7%.

In the previous school year, white students were also the most common group in Powell County schools, representing 95.2% of the student body.

Stanton Elementary School had the most diverse student body in the county, which included African American, American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Hispanic or Latino, multiracial, and white.

In the 2022-23 school year, the total number of students enrolled in schools in the county increased by 9.9% compared to the previous year.

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	Most Prevalent	Percent of Total Student Body	Total Enrollment
Powell County High School	White	95.6%	734
Clay City Elementary School	White	96.9%	584
Powell County Middle School	White	95.9%	581
Stanton Elementary School	White	94.5%	437
Bowen Elementary School	White	93%	270
Powell County Academy	White	91.7%	36