SE Bluegrass News

There were 14 African American students enrolled in Estill County School District schools in the 2022-23 school year, 40% more than the previous year, according to the Kentucky Department of Education.

Data showed that Estill County School District welcomed 2,314 students during the 2022-23 school year. Among them, African American students comprised 0.6% of the student body to be the third least represented ethnicity in the district.

Estill County School District roughly covers six schools within Estill County and has a main office in Irvine.

Among the six schools in Estill County School District, West Irvine Elementary School and Estill County High School recorded the highest enrollment of African American students in the 2022-23 school year, with a total of five students.

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.

Data also shows that between 2019 and 2023, there was an increase of 260% in the number of available teaching posts in Kentucky schools. This often leads to larger class sizes, combining programs, and retaining staff despite potential negative impacts on teacher working conditions.

Year	Total District Enrollment	Total African American Students	African American %
2022-23	2,314	14	0.6%
2021-22	2,394	10	0.4%
2020-21	2,407	9	0.4%
2019-20	2,526	10	0.4%