SE Bluegrass News

There were 36 Hispanic or Latino students enrolled in Estill County schools in the 2022-23 school year, a 9.1% increase from the 33 Hispanic or Latino students in the previous school year, according to the Kentucky Department of Education.

Data showed that Estill County welcomed a total of 2,336 students during the 2022-23 school year. Among them, Hispanic or Latino students comprised 1.5% of the student body to be the third most represented ethnicity in the county.

Among the six schools in Estill County, West Irvine Elementary School recorded the highest enrollment of Hispanic or Latino students in the 2022-23 school year, with a total of 11 students, making up 2.2% 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 Hispanic or Latino Students Enrolment	Total Enrollment
Estill Springs Elementary School	1.9%	482
Estill County Middle School	1.9%	474
Estill County High School	0.7%	672
South Irvine Early Learning Center	1.1%	182
West Irvine Elementary School	2.2%	500