Mary “Tracy” Morrison, owner of The Delta Institute for the Developing Brain in Arkansas, orchestrated a disturbing assault on a 13-year-old student during an April 2025 “circle time” session, ProPublica reported.
Morrison berated the boy, struck him repeatedly with a plastic cylinder, and instructed classmates to choke, slap, punch, and pinch him for nearly 40 minutes while three staff members watched without intervening.
The incident was captured on video.
Craighead County Sheriff’s Detective David Bailey, a Jonesboro native, began investigating the school.
“More came out in Bailey’s interviews with parents and current and former employees and in interviews that child advocates conducted with the students, documents show: allegations of “waterboarding” a child and cutting another’s hair as punishment,” ProPublica found, and added, “Slapping a student. A wooden paddle named Fred.
Morrison pleaded guilty to permitting child abuse and was sentenced to 30 days in jail, 120 days of house arrest, five years’ probation and surrendered her occupational therapy license.
The case exposed Arkansas’s lack of oversight of private schools receiving public Education Freedom Account vouchers.
Despite the abuse allegations, state officials quickly restored funding to the school, which now operates under a new name with Morrison still owning the property.
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