Jackson Purchase News

There were 23 American Indian or Alaska Native students enrolled in McCracken County schools in the 2022-23 school year, a 9.5% increase from the 21 American Indian or Alaska Native students in the previous school year, according to the Kentucky Department of Education.

Data showed that McCracken County welcomed a total of 11,471 students during the 2022-23 school year. Among them, American Indian or Alaska Native students comprised 0.2% of the student body to be the least represented ethnicity in the county.

Among the 17 schools in McCracken County, two schools recorded the highest enrollment of American Indian or Alaska Native 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.

School name	% of American Indian or Alaska Native Students Enrolment	Total Enrollment
Concord Elementary School	0.3%	668
McCracken Open Campus School	0.4%	279
McCracken County High School	0.2%	2,112
Heath Middle School	0.2%	442
Hendron Lone Oak Elementary School	0.2%	543
Lone Oak Middle School	0.1%	837
Reidland Elementary School	0.2%	641
Reidland Middle School	0.3%	356
Heath Elementary School	0.2%	513
Paducah Middle School	0.3%	717
Clark Elementary School	0.2%	649
McNabb Elementary School	0.3%	360
Paducah Tilghman High School	0.5%	936