Nortex Times

The only school in Cottle County suffered a drop in enrollment numbers in the 2022-23 school year, according to the Texas Education Agency report.

There were 158 students in the halls of Paducah School, 1.9% lower than the year before.

The enrollment numbers in Cottle County fell short of the state's trend of increasing enrollment.

Of all the students welcomed in the 2022-23 school year, 51.9% of the students were girls, and 48.1% were boys.

The most represented ethnicity among Paducah School students was Hispanic, accounting for 43.7% of the student population.

Paducah School has a main office in Paducah and is the only school within Cottle County.

Texas is found to be one of the least educated states in the U.S. A study from WalletHub ranked Texas 41st out of 50 states in terms of the quality of the educational system and how successful students were.

More than 5.4 million students are enrolled in public schools across Texas. Nearly one million of them live in rural areas where options for local public schools are few and far between.

Education in Texas is often a hot button issue, especially as test scores lag behind other states.

“The problems commonly cited are flaws in the school financing system, relatively low teacher salary, poor test performance by students, dropouts from traditional schools in favor of charter schools, gun violence, and mental health issues,” claimed the Texas Almanac.

School	Total Enrollment in 2022-23	Total Enrollment in 2021-22	Total % Change
Paducah School	158	161	-1.9%