It is important for both parents and students to know that they have missing work. I love using the Missing status to flag work that is past due, but as of right now you have to go to Grades, find the student with missing work (signified by the " - " symbol), click the grade tray, and select the radio button for "Missing" 

There should be a way to automatically assign the Missing Status to all assignments with a " - " symbol after the due date, or some other specified date. That way, I can mark a whole batch missing without having to go through one by one and do it by hand.