Kentucky has made rapid gains in closing the graduation gap between students from different economic backgrounds despite a poverty rate that exceeds the national average, a new study from the Johns Hopkins School of Education shows.

Kentucky had the highest graduation rate for low-income students and the smallest graduation rate gap between low-income and non-low-income students in the country in 2013, the study said.

School districts in the Barren River area have been focusing on individual students rather than honing in on a particular group, according to school officials.

Joey Kilburn, director of pupil personnel for Simpson County Schools, said the district takes the skills of all students into account to reduce the graduation gap, without considering their economic status.

“We don’t really focus on it as a gap,” he said. “We focus on (students) as individual cases to help kids who are at risk of dropping out.”

The district monitors student progress and provides intervention for anyone falling behind in reading or math, he said.

These interventions aren’t just for students nearing the legal dropout age of 18, Kilburn said. The district realizes that students who fall behind early often lose interest in school, he said.

“Some quit trying around 16 and the groundwork for that could have been laid in fourth grade,” he said.

For high school students, the district also has Franklin-Simpson West Campus, an alternative school students can attend for five weeks or the remainder of a school year, if needed, to catch up in their studies, Kilburn said.

Additionally, Franklin-Simpson High School provides numerous options for college and career readiness to foster student interest in graduating, Kilburn said.

The district’s technical center at the high school “connect(s) education to real-life opportunities,” he said, as it allows students to take classes that prepare them for career fields like masonry, welding and information technology.

“That’s a big part of it at that level, connecting what we’re doing to what their interests are,” Kilburn said.

In 2013, the latest year for which national data was available, 86 percent of Kentucky’s public school students graduated while the national average was 81 percent, according to United States Department of Education data.

Kentucky’s income-based graduation gap was 7 percent in 2014 and 1 percent, the national low, in 2013, while the gap tends to hover around 15 percent across the country, the data said.

The study attributes the state’s success largely to the Kentucky Education Reform Act, passed in 1990, which increased and equalized school funding and established family resource and youth service centers, among other changes.

Morgan Watson, a spokeswoman for Warren County Public Schools, said the district, like Simpson County Schools, also focuses on whether students are at risk of dropping out rather than their economic background.

The district employs a dropout prevention coordinator and has two alternative schools, the Lighthouse Academy, for students having difficulty in a traditional high school setting, and Beacon Academy, an online school that allows students to go at their own pace, she said.

The district’s high schools also work to keep students engaged with AP and dual credit courses and the Warren County Area Technology Center, where students can take classes that introduce them to fields like welding, carpentry and IT.

“That’s a great way to help students who might want to go into those technical-type fields,” she said.

Scott Harper, director of instruction and technology for Barren County Schools, said the district has increased its efforts at engaging students and catering to their interests.

“We have put a lot of efforts in the last few years on preparing students for college and careers,” he said.

The district offers introductory courses to fields like carpentry and health science through the Barren County Area Technology Center, to which students have reacted positively.

“They’ve seen that pay off,” he said. “They’ve seen it has tangible rewards in their real-world situations.”

— Follow Daily News reporter Jackson French on Twitter @Jackson_French or visit bgdailynews.com.