DETROIT – Attendance in Detroit Public School Community District has improved, but more work is needed. The district has seen a nearly six percent jump in attendance. Up to 81% of students attend regularly.
“What we all know is the greatest obstacle to improving attendance is the concentrated poverty we see in the city,” said DPSCD Superintendent Dr. Nikolai Vitti.
To try and combat the problem, the school district has created health hubs that offer wraparound services—everything from dental care to help with evictions.
Detroit’s poverty, violent crime, declining population, and eroding tax base add to absenteeism and an achievement gap.
In the last series of statewide testing, DPSCD saw modest improvements across the board. That said, the numbers are still dreadful.
For example, only 13% of students in grades three through seven were proficient in ELA on the MSTEP test. That number is an improvement but nowhere near where it needs to be.
“It’s our responsibility to take children where they’re at and make sure when they graduate they’re better than when we first received them, and I can say over the last six years, even with the pandemic, we’ve shown improvement,” Vitti said.
The superintendent has also been to Lansing looking for help from the governor and the legislature to change up rules on how state monies can be spent to have greater latitude in allocating resources.