SW Bluegrass News

There were 312 ninth grade students enrolled in Mercer County schools in the 2022-23 school year, 8.7% more than the previous year, according to the Kentucky Department of Education.

Mercer County Senior High School welcomed most of the ninth grade students in the county, registering 231 students.

Within Mercer County schools, the highest student population was found in ninth grade, with the smallest class sizes seen in 11th grade.

Statewide, Mercer County ranked 55th in enrollment numbers. It was also ranked 55th 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
Mercer County Senior High School	231	30.3%	762
Burgin Independent School	57	10.5%	542
Mercer Central	12	17.1%	70
Mercer County Day Treatment	10	31.2%	32
Kenneth D. King Middle School	2	0.3%	657