North Kentucky News

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

Of the 2,584 students attending Pendleton County schools, 94.4% were white. Multiracial students were the second most represented ethnicity, making up 2.1%.

In the previous school year, white students were also the most common group in Pendleton County schools, representing 94.8% of the student body.

Southern Elementary School had the most even distribution of races among county schools, which included 93.3% white students, 2.7% Hispanic or Latino students, 2.1% multiracial students, 1.8% African American students, and 0.2% Asian students.

In the 2022-23 school year, the total number of students enrolled in schools in the county increased by 5.3% 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
Pendleton County High School	White	95%	804
Southern Elementary School	White	93.3%	623
Northern Elementary School	White	94.2%	588
Phillip Sharp Middle School	White	95.1%	569