North Bluegrass News

There were 299 first grade students enrolled in Bourbon County schools in the 2022-23 school year, 26.2% more than the previous year, according to the Kentucky Department of Education.

Bourbon Central Elementary School welcomed most of the first grade students in the county, registering 105 students.

Within Bourbon County schools, the highest student population was found in preschool, with the smallest class sizes seen in kindergarten.

Statewide, Bourbon County ranked 49th in enrollment numbers. It was also ranked 49th 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 1st Grade Students Enrolled	% of Student Body	Total Enrollment
Bourbon Central Elementary School	105	20.3%	518
Cane Ridge Elementary School	104	20.7%	502
Paris Elementary School	67	19.8%	338
North Middletown Elementary School	23	14.7%	156