High Schools in Nicholas County

Nicholas County High School is Nicholas County’s only listed high school, serving grades 7–12 and enrolling 435 students. Its reported 2025–2026 proficiency results are generally below state levels: across 13 comparable subject-and-grade results, the school averaged 30% proficiency versus 41% statewide, a 12-point gap. The most important finding is that this shortfall appears across most reported subjects, not just one.

There are no local schools to rank against one another, but the school’s strongest result relative to the state is 11th-grade writing: 50% proficiency versus 47%, a 3-point advantage. Its largest shortfall is 8th-grade writing, at 25% versus 48%, or 23 points below the state. Social studies is also a notable area of weakness: its reported grade 8 and 11 results average 21%, compared with 38% statewide, an 18-point gap. By contrast, editing and mechanics is closer to the state average, at 37% versus 41% across the two reported grades.

Results shifted unevenly over time: across 12 subject-and-grade results reported in both years, the school’s average fell about 5 points from 2024–2025 to 2025–2026, while the state average fell about 1 point, widening the average gap by 4 points. Reading improved in grades 7 and 10, rising 6 and 8 points, respectively, but grade 8 reading fell 18 points. SchoolDigger rates the school 1 star and ranks it 189th of 262 Kentucky high schools, in the 28th percentile, for 2025–2026; its prior ratings were 2 stars in both 2023–2024 and 2024–2025. For context, the 2024–2025 student–teacher ratio was 18.1, and 57% of students were free/reduced lunch eligible. In 2025–2026, graduation was 93% versus 94% statewide, dropout was 0% versus 1%, and chronic absenteeism was 25% versus 24%. With just one listed school, local school-to-school comparisons are unavailable, and changing ranking pools mean rank numbers are not directly comparable over time.