Summary:
ZIP code 40456 has two high schools in Rockcastle County: Rockcastle County High School, serving grades 9–12, and Rockcastle Academy for Academic Achievement, serving grades 7–12. Together they enroll 835 students, with 796 at the high school and 39 at the Academy. The clearest headline is that the high school pairs strong reading and graduation results with chronic absenteeism well above the state rate.
Rockcastle County High School stands out for grade 10 reading: 62% were proficient in 2025–2026, 13 points above the state’s 49%; its graduation rate was 99%, compared with 94% statewide. Its chronic absenteeism, however, was 32%, versus 24% statewide. SchoolDigger gave the high school 3 stars and ranked it 94th of 262 schools, at the 64th percentile, in 2025–2026. The Academy’s available SchoolDigger ranking was lower—266th of 290, at the 8th percentile—in 2023–2024, so it is not a same-year comparison. The state suppressed the Academy’s school-level test results, so its proficiency cannot be compared with the high school’s.
Recent test results at the high school are mixed: from 2024–2025 to 2025–2026, reading rose 6 points and writing 8, while math fell 4 and editing and mechanics fell 7; science was unchanged and social studies fell 2. Its average advantage over the state across the six subjects remained about 3 points in both years. SchoolDigger’s percentile for the high school rose from 59th in 2023–2024 to 69th in 2024–2025, then slipped to 64th in 2025–2026. The schools also differ in size and student-teacher ratios: 16.7:1 at the high school and 9.7:1 at the Academy. In 2024–2025, free/reduced lunch eligible students made up 61% at the high school and 74% at the Academy, a 13-point difference; these figures offer context, not an explanation for school outcomes.
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