For its poverty rate, Missouri should be placed on child neglect registry.

For its poverty rate, Missouri should be placed on child neglect registry.

Under Missouri’s child protection law, teachers and other school officials with responsibility for the care of children are “mandatory reporters” who must “immediately report or cause a report to be made” to the Children’s Division of the Missouri Department of Social Services whenever they have “reasonable cause to suspect that a child has been or may be subjected to abuse or neglect.”