A school director in Arkansas faces jail time, house arrest, and probation after authorities accused her of being the ringleader of a child fight club.
Mary Tracy Morrison, 51, the owner and director of The Delta Institute for the Developing Brain and the Engage program in Jonesboro, Arkansas, is charged with one count of permitting child abuse and four counts of contributing to the delinquency of a juvenile.
On Monday, she was sentenced to “60 months’ probation on the child abuse charge and 12 months’ probation for each of the other charges. She will also serve 30 days in the Craighead County Detention Center,” KAIT reports.
Prosecutors believe, based on witness accounts and video evidence, that Morrison systematically abused and humiliated students attending her school.
Police arrested Morrison in April of 2025 after the mother of one of the students at the school claimed that her son reported being mentally and physically abused.
A video of the incident, obtained by the police through a warrant, shows that Morrison “instructed the child to sit on the floor while being surrounded on the outside of a circle by 18 other juvenile students and Dr. Morrison,” KAIT reports.
The probable cause affidavit claims that Morrison told the children to put their hands on the child at the center of the circle and strike him with an “unknown object.”
Morrison was seen in the video verbally chastising the child while another child was violently kicking and choking him.
After he was done attacking the child at the center of the circle, Morrison gave “the juvenile a high five, displaying her pleasure with the student’s actions,” the affidavit states.
Three of Morrison’s employees were arrested for their roles in partaking in or facilitating the abuse. Those employees are Michael Bean, 38, Kristin Bell, 36, and Kathrine Lipscomb, 45.
Authorities say one of the teachers instructed students to strike their classmate “in the private area.”
Morrison pleaded guilty Monday to one count of permitting child abuse and four counts of contributing to the delinquency of a juvenile, KAIT reports.
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