Jackson Purchase News

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

Of the 11,533 students attending McCracken County schools, 70.6% were white. African American students were the second most represented ethnicity, making up 16.9%.

In the previous school year, white students were also the most common group in McCracken County schools, representing 69% of the student body.

Concord Elementary School and Lone Oak 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 4.3% 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
McCracken County High School	White	85.9%	2,144
Paducah Tilghman High School	White	43.5%	892
Lone Oak Middle School	White	82%	812
Concord Elementary School	White	82.1%	681
Clark Elementary School	White	54.9%	661
Lone Oak Elementary School	White	79.6%	653
Reidland Elementary School	White	83.2%	638
Lone Oak Intermediate School	White	83.8%	531
Hendron Lone Oak Elementary School	White	80.8%	505
Heath Middle School	White	85.7%	504
Heath Elementary School	White	90%	462
Morgan Elementary School	White	38.4%	438
McCracken Regional School	White	60.6%	388
Reidland Middle School	White	84.3%	383
Reidland Intermediate School	White	82.1%	273
McCracken Open Campus School	White	76.8%	267
Choices Educational Center	African American	63.6%	129