Best Public Schools in New Castle, KY

New Castle, Kentucky, has three public schools serving kindergarten through grade 12: New Castle Elementary School, Henry County Middle School, and Henry County High School. Together, they enroll 1,355 students, with individual school enrollments from 326 to 608. The clearest concern is elementary achievement: in 2025–2026, the elementary school fell below state benchmarks in all nine reported tests, averaging 19 points below the state.

The middle and high schools stand out for writing, while the elementary school is the clear low performer overall. In 2025–2026, writing proficiency was 67% at both older schools—20 points above the state at the high school and 19 points above at the middle school; the elementary writing result was suppressed. Across reported tests, the middle school averaged 4.2 points above state benchmarks and the high school 3.8 points above, while the elementary school averaged 19 points below. Science was a shared weakness: results were 8 points below the state at the high school, 7 below at the middle school, and 27 below at the elementary school. The high school also posted a 97% graduation rate, 3 points above the state.

Recent trends favor the high school: its average state-relative gap improved by 6 points between the two years, while the middle school’s fell by 5 points and the elementary school’s by about 2. SchoolDigger’s latest percentile rankings also rose for the high school, from 41 to 65, while the middle school moved from 72 to 64 and the elementary school from 10 to 8. School size and student-teacher ratios may matter to families: ratios were 16.0 at the high school, 14.5 at the middle school, and 16.3 at the elementary school in 2024–2025. That year, free/reduced lunch eligible was 49% at the high school, 54% at the middle school, and 58% at the elementary school; these figures describe the schools and do not explain their results. The schools serve different grades, and the elementary writing result was suppressed.