East Louisville News

There were 665 ninth grade students enrolled in Shelby County schools in the 2022-23 school year, 10% less than the previous year, according to the Kentucky Department of Education.

Martha Layne Collins High School welcomed most of the ninth grade students in the county, registering 355 students.

Within Shelby County schools, the highest student population was found in ninth grade, with the smallest class sizes seen in preschool.

Statewide, Shelby County ranked 26th in enrollment numbers. It was also ranked 26th the year before.

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	# of 9th Grade Students Enrolled	% of Student Body	Total Enrollment
Martha Layne Collins High School	355	28%	1,266
Shelby County High School	288	27.4%	1,052
Ascension Academy	22	31.4%	70