ProPublica reports that Mary “Tracy” Morrison hit a 13-year -old boy and encouraged other students to hit him at the Delta Institute for the Developing Brain, an unregulated private school outside of Jonesboro, Arkansas:
There are no records showing that the Arkansas Department of Education investigated the Delta Institute or visited the school, even after police arrested its founder. When asked if the department had gone to the school, officials did not answer, but said when the department is made aware of issues, that “often results in a site visit.”
…Morrison was an occupational therapist and had never run a school before. But she sold herself to parents as an expert on autism and neurodivergence…
A detective went to the school in April 2025 with a warrant and retrieved a roughly 40-minute clip of footage recorded by a camera in the classroom. I obtained that through a Freedom of Information Act request, and it’s really the only unfiltered view we have into the methods Morrison was using at her school.
The video shows Morrison directing a boy to sit in the middle of a circle of 12- and 13-year-old students on the floor. Morrison then told the students to put their hands on the boy in the center however they wanted.
One boy loops his arm around the student’s neck and chokes him. Afterward, Morrison gives the boy a high-five.
Other students join in by hitting, punching and pinching the boy. Morrison encourages one, who strikes the boy hard enough that you can hear another student say, “That had to hurt!”
A few moments later, Morrison thwacks the boy in the center with a footlong plastic cylinder. She’s trying to get him to admit to being unkind to another student.
Morrison was charged with 11 felony counts of permitting child abuse and other related crimes. She took a deal pleading guilty to one count of permitting child abuse and four counts of contributing to the delinquency of a juvenile. The deal allowed her to avoid a trial, which means the video was never played in open court. She was sentenced to 30 days in jail…
The school is still operating and is still eligible to get public funding from the state. This spring, though, it changed its name. It’s now called North Star Academy.
(Source: ProPublica)