There was 50,000 students enrolled in Detroit public schools last year yet they racked up 1,539,981 of missed school days.  That averages 30 missed school days per student.

What is going on?

The Michigan Capitol Confidential news site is reporting this depressing number.

What is the Detroit Public school officials saying about this?  Well they say you must put this number in the proper context.

What possibly could be the “proper context” for that many missed school days?

Well per the Michigan Cap Con article “the district has several different categories for absences and considers many in the total to have been excused. The 1.5 million figure includes days missed due to illness, suspensions, pending expulsions and more.”

Detroit public school district spokeswoman Michelle Zdrodowski was quoted in the article saying “the Detroit district also has a transient population of students, estimated to be in the hundreds, who registered for school in the next grade but may have moved. In reality, DPS' absence rate is approximately 5.5 percent of a student's enrolled days”.

To put these numbers in another perspective the Detroit district’s median number of student absences for 2014-15 was 8,113 students a day. What does that mean? Approximately 16% of the Detroit students are not sitting in a classroom desk each day.

Another statistic that should concern us is the Detroit Public Schools had approximately 65% of its students listed as "chronically absent" by the state.  That means those students missed more than 10 days of school or more. The state average is 27.8%.

I cannot believe the state average is approximately 28%.

What is going on in Detroit that, that many children are missing school?

How do we expect things to change in Detroit with so many children missing school?

What can we do to improve this situation?

Let’s discuss this today on my program, The Live with Renk show, which airs Monday through Friday 9 a.m. to noon, to let me know your thoughts at (269) 441-9595.

Or please feel free to start a discussion and write your thoughts in the comment section.

More From WKMI