NC Kentucky News

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

Of the 8,007 students attending Nelson County schools, 82.8% were white. African American students were the second most represented ethnicity, making up 6.5%.

In the previous school year, white students were also the most common group in Nelson County schools, representing 81.9% of the student body.

Bardstown 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 2.9% 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
Nelson County High School	White	89.8%	852
Thomas Nelson High School	White	95%	701
Foster Heights Elementary School	White	89.3%	690
Bardstown Elementary School	White	67%	666
Bardstown Primary School	White	68.6%	650
Bardstown Middle School	White	68.6%	634
Bardstown High School	White	67.3%	633
Coxs Creek Elementary School	White	94.8%	499
Old Kentucky Home Middle School	White	93.5%	372
Bardstown Early Childhood Center	White	62.1%	356
Nelson County Early Learning Center	White	86.7%	353
Bloomfield Elementary School	White	91%	346
The New Haven School	White	95.8%	335
The Academy at Horizons	White	93.7%	95
Bardstown Alternative School	White	55.9%	59