SW Bluegrass News

There were 2,955 students enrolled in Mercer County School District schools in the 2022-23 school year, 0.1% less than the previous year, according to the Kentucky Department of Education.

Of all the students welcomed in the 2022-23 school year, 52.5% of them were boys, and 47.5% were girls.

Data also shows that most of the students were white, representing 81.3% of the district's total enrollment.

Mercer County School District roughly covers six schools within Mercer County and has a main office in Harrodsburg.

Among the six schools in Mercer County School District, Mercer County Elementary School recorded the highest enrollment of 809 students in the 2022-23 school 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.

Data also shows that between 2019 and 2023, there was an increase of 260% in the number of available teaching posts in Kentucky schools. This often leads to larger class sizes, combining programs, and retaining staff despite potential negative impacts on teacher working conditions.

School Name	Total Enrollment in 2021-22	Total Enrollment in 2022-23	% change
Mercer County Elementary School	788	809	2.7%
Mercer County Senior High School	775	762	-1.7%
Kenneth D. King Middle School	685	657	-4.3%
Mercer County Intermediate School	616	625	1.5%
Mercer Central	67	70	4.5%
Mercer County Day Treatment	27	32	18.5%