The Harrison County Courthouse is located in Bethany, Missouri, a small county seat where the hardware store, diner, and local legal life all revolve around the courthouse square. For most people walking by, the building is unremarkable. However, that courthouse is now at the center of something far more serious than Morgan Michelle Smith, a 31-year-old from Ridgeway, may have thought when her kindergarten-age child began missing school days.
A Class C Misdemeanor charge of Violation of Education Requirement of a Child has been brought against Smith. Her child had 47 unexcused absences throughout the academic year, according to the probable cause statement. Following several unanswered notifications and truancy letters, the school district filed a referral with the 3rd Circuit Juvenile Office. According to the report, Smith refused to assist the Missouri Children’s Division’s investigation into the family’s alleged educational neglect. The path toward criminal charges was probably hardened more by that refusal than by nearly anything else in the record.
Forty-seven days is a number worth considering. There are about 175 days in a typical school year. This indicates that this kindergartener missed more than 25% of the school year while learning letters, numbers, and how to sit in a classroom. The court record may not fully reflect the circumstances surrounding those absences. A truancy letter from a district office may not always take into account the complexities of rural Missouri life. However, 47 days is hard to explain away, and the pattern of disregarded outreach from the Children’s Division and the school indicates that this was not a family quietly struggling without assistance, but rather one that had been offered assistance but rejected it.
Here, the legal context is important. The convictions of two single mothers, Caitlyn Williams and Tamarae LaRue, who had been charged under the same mandatory attendance statute, were upheld by the Missouri Supreme Court in August 2023. Despite having a first-grader and a kindergartener with significantly fewer absences than Smith’s child, both mothers were sentenced to jail. The state can and will pursue criminal misdemeanor charges, probation, and incarceration over school attendance; the ruling confirmed what many Missouri parents had hoped was untrue. Section 167.061 of the law is straightforward. Following a conviction, every subsequent school day becomes a distinct infraction.
As this case develops, it seems as though Missouri is intentionally making a point. The 2023 decision garnered widespread attention because detractors claimed the law was being applied unfairly: wealthy families who take their children on Disney vacations or during deer season seldom face prosecution, while parents with lower incomes bear the legal risk virtually alone. The Supreme Court heard that argument, but it was rejected. The state has consistently maintained that parents who enroll their children in public schools agree to the terms of the attendance statute.
The timing of the Smith case is what makes it so closely watched. It comes at a time when there is a national discussion about what families owe schools, what schools owe families, and how much of that relationship should be enforced by criminal law as opposed to social services. Missouri courts have avoided addressing the issue of whether locking up a parent genuinely puts a child in school or merely causes chaos in an already difficult household. They have made a decision regarding the constitutionality of the law. The more difficult question, whether the law is good policy, is still unanswered.
While the legal system operates, it’s difficult not to wonder what happens to the kindergartener at the center of it all. A court appearance won’t make up for the disruptions to the child’s education that have already occurred. The question that no one seems willing to directly address is whether a misdemeanor conviction improves anything.
