Editing Missouri (section)

===Primary and secondary schools===
{{See also|List of school districts in Missouri|List of high schools in Missouri}}

Education is compulsory from ages seven to seventeen. It is required that any parent, guardian, or another person with custody of a child between the ages of seven and seventeen, the compulsory attendance age for the district, must ensure the child is enrolled in and regularly attends public, private, parochial school, home school or a combination of schools for the full term of the school year. Compulsory attendance also ends when children complete sixteen credits in high school.

Children in Missouri between the ages of five and seven are not required to be enrolled in school. However, if they are enrolled in a public school, their parent, guardian, or custodian must ensure they regularly attend.

Missouri schools are commonly but not exclusively divided into three tiers of primary and secondary education: elementary school, [[middle school]] or [[junior high school]] and high school. The public school system includes kindergarten to 12th grade. District territories are often complex in structure. In some cases, elementary, middle, and junior high schools of a single district feed into high schools in another district. As another example, special education and related services for students in the twenty-two school districts of St. Louis County are provided by staff employed by a special school district, a local education agency that serves students county-wide. High school athletics and competitions are governed by the [[Missouri State High School Activities Association]] (MSHSAA).

[[Homeschooling]] is legal in Missouri and is an option to meet the compulsory education requirement. It is neither monitored nor regulated by the state's Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.<ref>{{cite web |author=Missouri Department Of Elementary And Secondary Education |url=http://www.dese.mo.gov/schoollaw/HomeSch/ |title=Home Schooling |publisher=Dese.mo.gov |date=September 2, 2009 |access-date=February 20, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110514195922/http://dese.mo.gov/schoollaw/HomeSch/ |archive-date=May 14, 2011 }}</ref>

Another gifted school is the [[Missouri Academy of Science, Mathematics and Computing]], which is at the [[Northwest Missouri State University]].