LANSING, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – The Michigan state legislature is concerned with crowded classrooms in grades K-12 at a time when there are more teachers and fewer students.

The Detroit News reported on what it says is overcrowding in some classrooms and wrote: “State lawmakers from both sides of the political aisle said they plan to take steps in the coming months to try to lower crowded class sizes in Michigan’s schools.”

MORE NEWS: VIDEO: Michigan Lawmaker Pulls Prank on Another Capitol Colleague

The debate occurs while there are already more teachers and fewer students in Michigan’s K-12 schools.

The number of teachers in the state of Michigan has increased from 98,481 in 2016-17 to 117,002 in 2024-25, according to the state of Michigan. Over that same time, the number of students has dropped from 1,532,335 to 1,427,386.

The Detroit News reported that “Michael Rice, Michigan’s superintendent of public instruction, testified before a state House committee on March 18, when he told lawmakers about a third grade class in Detroit with 33 students. He said it was ‘not possible to do the best a teacher needs to do for young people’ in such a classroom. ‘Thirty-three in Detroit in the third grade classroom is too high,’ Rice added during the hearing.”

Detroit’s public school district has about 8,700 individual classrooms.

And the district is already addressing that issue by spending $13 million over the next three years to hire more K-3 teachers. It’s getting the money from a 2016 literacy lawsuit where the state legislature gave the district $94.4 million.

And it’s unclear if the data provided by school districts for class sizes factors in the high rate of absenteeism. Statewide, about 3 in 10 students are classified as “chronically absent” meaning they miss at least 10% or more of school days. In problematic school districts, that can be much higher. For example, in Flint’s public schools, 80% of the students are chronically absent. In Detroit’s public school district, it is 66%.

MORE NEWS: From Garage to Giving: Rare Car Show Shifts into Gear for Cancer Fight