North Bluegrass News

There were 1,840 students enrolled in Owen County School District schools in the 2022-23 school year, 3% less than the previous year, according to the Kentucky Department of Education.

Of all the students welcomed in the 2022-23 school year, 51.1% of them were boys, and 48.9% were girls.

Data also shows that most of the students were white, representing 91.6% of the district's total enrollment.

Owen County School District roughly covers three schools within Owen County and has a main office in Owenton.

Among the three schools in Owen County School District, Owen County Elementary/Primary School recorded the highest enrollment of 741 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
Owen County Elementary/Primary School	723	741	2.5%
Owen County High School	615	587	-4.8%
Maurice Bowling Middle School	557	512	-8.8%