Beth Smith is a graduate of William Jewell College, where she received her BS in Elementary Education and Early Childhood. She earned her MS in Curriculum and Instruction at University of Central Missouri in 1992. Beth taught for 26 years primarily in the Lee’s Summit School District in Lee’s Summit, MO. She has also been a member of the faculty at both Baker University in Baldwin, KS and Stephan F. Austin University in Nacogdoches, TX. Beth has been with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for 5 years.