NE Kentucky News

There were nine African American students enrolled in Lewis County schools in the 2022-23 school year, a 50% increase from the six African American students in the previous school year, according to the Kentucky Department of Education.

Data showed that Lewis County welcomed a total of 2,184 students during the 2022-23 school year. Among them, African American students comprised 0.4% of the student body to be the least represented ethnicity in the county.

Among the six schools in Lewis County, Lewis County Central Elementary School recorded the highest enrollment of African American students in the 2022-23 school year, with a total of four students, making up 0.8% 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
Garrison Elementary School	0.6%	308
Lewis County Central Elementary School	0.8%	501
Lewis County High School	0.5%	652