High Schools in Nelson County

Three high schools in Nelson County serve grades 9–12 at Nelson County High School and Thomas Nelson High School, and grades 6–12 at Heartland Youth Village. Their enrollments are 756, 629, and 15, respectively. In the six comparable 2025–26 subjects, both conventional high schools were below state proficiency; writing was the largest shared concern, with the two-school average 17 points below the state.

Thomas Nelson leads Nelson County High in all six subjects. Its advantage ranges from 2 points in social studies (26% versus 24%) to 19 points in writing (40% versus 21%); its six-subject average is 34%, compared with 27% at Nelson County High. SchoolDigger also ranks Thomas Nelson higher: 167th of 262 Kentucky high schools, at the 36th percentile with two stars, versus 214th, the 18th percentile and one star for Nelson County High. Both schools have strong graduation rates—99% at Thomas Nelson and 98% at Nelson County High, compared with 94% statewide—but chronic absenteeism is higher than the state rate of 24% at both: 31% and 30%, respectively. Heartland stands out for low chronic absenteeism, at 5%.

Across the five subjects reported for both conventional schools in both years, their average fell from 37% in 2024–25 to 34% in 2025–26, while the state average rose from 42% to 43%; the local shortfall widened from 5 to 9 points. Nelson County High’s writing result dropped from 40% to 21%, while Thomas Nelson’s rose from 31% to 40%, one exception to its otherwise mixed year-to-year results. For additional context, in 2024–25 free/reduced lunch eligible was 52% at Nelson County High, 44% at Thomas Nelson and 20% at Heartland; student-teacher ratios were 16.1, 19.3 and 7.5, respectively. Heartland’s academic results do not provide a comparable profile to the two 9–12 schools.