An Arkansas private school founder has been sentenced to just 30 days in jail after leading what authorities call a “makeshift fight club” at her school meant to support Disabled children. Dr. Mary Tracy Morrison, who founded the The Delta Institute for the Developing Brain in 2025 and the Engage program in 2017 according to multiple reports, was arrested in 2025 alongside three other educators—two of whom are reportedly parents of students at the school—after a video surfaced of Morrison and others encouraging students to beat a 13-year-old student for 30 minutes. The video came after the student’s mother complained about the child’s treatment at the school in Jonesboro, Arkansas.
Morrison’s program has been highlighted in 2023 by local media for its work with autistic students and received more than $300,000 in private-school voucher funding from the state (according to a Freedom of Information Act request submitted by For Ar People) in addition to collecting more than $100,000 in program fees according to documents submitted to the IRS and made viewable by ProPublica. Morrison, prior to sanctioning the strangling of a Disabled student, received her doctorate in occupational therapy and cognitive neuroscience in 2002 and worked for a time at Arkansas State University.
According to an affidavit reported by People, among other outlets, Morrison “instructed the juvenile child to sit on the floor while being surrounded on the outside by a circle…telling other students to put their hands on the juvenile child located in the center of the circle…[and was] seen putting her hands on the child as well as hitting the child with an unknown object.” Morrison then gave a student a high five after beating the victim.
Morrison’s bond was set at $250,000 and, after a plea deal, her 19 felony charges and 11 misdemeanor charges resulted in just one month in jail, 120 days of house arrest and a lifetime ban from working with children. She will also serve five years of probation and has a one-year suspended sentence for each misdemeanor charge. Prosecutors dropped charges against Michael Bean and Kristin Bell, who had been charged with permitting child abuse and failure to notify by mandated reporter; another person charged in the case, Kathrine Lipscomb, agreed to probation, including community service, attending anger management classes and completing a mandated reporter training class within 90 days.
Bell and Lipscomb also previously tried to get their no-contact order revised so that they could still teach at the school, a request that was denied by a local judge in September, 2025. Their argument, according to one of the defendants’ lawyers, was that they were needed in order to keep the school functioning.
“About the only comment that I can make is that I was very disappointed in the judge’s decision today, and that the return of these two teachers is essential to the school moving forward…The school serves a very vital purpose, and these two teachers are desperately needed to allow the school to continue to do the good work it’s been doing.”
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