Ballard County Middle School

Ballard County Middle School is a micro-enrollment middle school in Barlow, Kentucky, run under Ballard County. The school educates 202 students in grades 6 through 8. That puts it 64% smaller than the typical public school in Kentucky, which averages around 558 students.

Within Ballard County, which oversees 4 schools and 1,015 students, Ballard County Middle School is one campus in the system.

Demographically, Ballard County Middle School lists that the student body is overwhelmingly White (90%); the rest reads as 6% multiracial, 2% Black. That mix tracks the wider county fairly closely.

On the resource side, On paper, Ballard County Middle School has 14 full-time-equivalent teachers, translating to a class-load average of around 14.8:1. The state averages around 15.8:1, so this campus is tighter than the state norm typical. An estimated 50% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, a commonly cited indicator of low-income enrollment. By comparison, Ballard County runs at roughly 59%, so the school's eligibility rate is somewhat below the surrounding baseline.

Adjusting for the school's free-and-reduced-lunch share, Ballard County Middle School performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 46.3%, the actual is 58.3%, a residual of +12.1 points.

In the broader community, the surrounding county (Ballard County) reports that the typical household earns roughly $66,164 per year, 18% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and census figures put the poverty rate at about 11%. Across Ballard County's 5 public schools (combined enrollment of about 1,015 students), Ballard County Middle School is one campus in the mix.

Nearest neighbor: Ballard Memorial High School, around 0.1 miles off. Within five miles, there are 3 other public schools. On composite proficiency, Ballard County Middle School comes 2nd of 7 in the immediate cluster, ahead of the nearby-schools average of 38.7%.

The campus sits in a countryside setting.

Five-year trend. Looking back 7 years, enrollment at Ballard County Middle School has decreased 23%, going from 264 students in 2018 to 202 in 2025. Class-load math has fell: from 17.9:1 in 2018 to 14.8:1 in 2025.

Inside the community feed, recent activity here tends to focus on sports schedules, lunch menu changes, and school spirit week. Posting is open to anyone connected to the school.