The Kentucky Department of Education's (KDE) school report cards for the 2025-2026 academic year are out. The annual reports, released Thursday, score all of Kentucky's 171 public school districts based on state testing results, academic progress, school climate, college readiness, and graduation rates.
In Northern Kentucky, Beechwood has the highest marks, with blue ratings at the elementary and middle school levels, and green at the high school level.
The department uses a color-coded scale of blue, green, yellow, orange, and red to judge each school district at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. Red is the lowest score a school, while blue is the highest.
Though Beechwood's scores were high, this year's report card shows a slight decline. The district earned blue ratings at every level during the 2024-2025 school year.
Walton-Verona earned green across all levels for 2025-2026, after securing all blue ratings the previous year.
Boone, Campbell, and Kenton County school districts each scored green at all levels, nearly matching last year's ratings. Southgate Independent also has all green scores.
Bellevue, Dayton, Newport, and Erlanger-Elsmere all earned scores with either orange or yellow ratings at each level.
Newport and Covington Independent's scores are mostly orange and yellow, but each has a grade level that fell in the red. This year, Newport Primary School got a red rating after earning orange last year, and Covington's Holmes High School dropped to red after previously earning a yellow rating.
There are fewer higher-performing schools statewide on this year's report card. KDE says the decline is because of its "change" metric, which can bring a district's score down for not showing improvement from the previous year, even if performance levels remained satisfactory.
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