How Videos Helped Me Uncover Abuse at an Arkansas Private School

The Delta Institute for the Developing Brain was located off a country road, in a white colonial house – such an unusual location that I initially walked past it, not sure it was a school. I turned around, walked toward the door, introduced myself as a reporter, and asked for a tour.

I knew a student had been assaulted at that Arkansas school a year earlier because of news reports based on a detective’s description. Once inside, I noticed the preteens nestled in hammock chairs or sitting on the floor. I noticed the cameras set up in the hall and classrooms, reminding myself that to fully understand what had happened, I would need to see the video that captured the assault.

But because this happened at Delta Institute, a private school, I did not have access to the types of public records (incident reports, emails, and videos) that might have existed at a public school. The only reason we knew something horrible happened here was because law enforcement was involved. I will have to continue reporting for weeks until the criminal case is closed. Then I could start looking for the video evidence.

I had come to northeast Arkansas, just outside Jonesboro, to report on the opening of private schools in response to state legislatures setting aside more and more public funds for parents to spend on private education. Our reports show that more public money does not necessarily translate into more transparency. In most of states that ProPublica studiedprivate schools operate with little control. Unlike public schools, where everything from test scores to school meals and staff graduations are regulated, most of what happens in private schools is not subject to public scrutiny.

In Arkansas, at the center of my recent history with Jodi S. Cohen, there are no rules about who can open a private school, and they can operate just about anywhere. The state only requires private schools to hold regular fire drills, maintain immunization records and have an American flag and flagpole. It does not examine the schools’ curriculum or the backgrounds and capabilities of their operators.

There is no record 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 ministry had visited the school, officials did not respond, but said that when the ministry was informed of problems, it “often resulted in an on-site visit.”

Eventually, I was able to obtain video evidence recorded inside the school. With the help of Arkansas Times reporter Milo Strain, I submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for video footage to the Craighead County Sheriff’s Office and the prosecutor who brought the charges on behalf of the state.

Now I want to share some of these images with you. It comes primarily from my open records requests, as well as a video that was shared with me by a parent who consented to its publication. Although the videos are difficult to watch, they are important in that they show not only the mistreatment of students at a particular private school, but also the systemic lack of oversight that allows private schools to operate with few regulations and little oversight.

Early in my reporting on the Delta Institute, a parent showed me a video of her son’s experience at the school. It was taken by the school’s owner, Mary “Tracy” Morrison. She had texted the video to Renee Johns, whose 10-year-old autistic son was a student, to explain why he was being kept after school that day.

This video shows three boys scrubbing the floor and walls of a room at the school with rags while Morrison shouts orders and reprimands. You can see the boys jump and react as she raises her voice at them. It is clear that they are being punished.

Morrison was an occupational therapist and had never run a school before. But she presented herself to parents as an expert in autism and neurodivergence.

Johns filed a report about the floor cleaning video with the Craighead County Sheriff’s Office. She saw it as child abuse. About three weeks later, in April 2025, a second parent came to the sheriff’s office to report another incident at the Delta Institute — this one also caught on camera.

A detective went to the school in April 2025 with a warrant and recovered an approximately 40-minute clip recorded by a camera in the classroom. I obtained this through a Freedom of Information Act request, and it’s really the only unfiltered view we have of the methods Morrison used at his school.

The video shows Morrison ordering 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.

A boy puts his arm around the student’s neck and chokes him. Afterwards, Morrison gives the boy a high-five.

Other students join in, hitting, hitting and pinching the boy. Morrison encourages one, who hits the boy hard enough that another student can be heard saying, “That must have hurt!”

Moments later, Morrison hits the boy in the center with a foot-long plastic cylinder. She tries to get him to admit that he is not nice to another student.

Morrison was charged with 11 counts of permitting child abuse and other related crimes. She reached a deal by pleading guilty to one count of permitting child abuse and four counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. The deal allowed him to avoid a trial, meaning the video was never played in open court. She was sentenced to 30 days in prison.

I have been writing about schools for almost 25 years, often in depth on discipline and how schools respond to student behavior.

But what I saw in the video was nothing like what I had seen before. I had never seen a school administrator – the owner of the school, no less – yell at a child that he is a liar or invite other students to put their hands on him.

Morrison refused to speak to the detective who investigated the case or the prosecutor. She did not respond to our requests for interviews and comment. Our only real insight into her perspective came from other videos we obtained: recordings of calls with family, friends and school employees made while she was in prison.

We obtained recordings of more than 500 phone and video calls Morrison made or received while incarcerated in May. On a call with a filmmaker who has produced true crime documentaries and who spoke with Morrison to tell his story, we hear his explanation of what happened.

Morrison describes leading a “sophisticated” intervention method in which she guides students at risk of becoming criminals in a “restorative” group discussion. “It was never about ‘Go hit him,’ was it?” » she told the filmmaker, referring to the 13-year-old boy she had seated in the center of the circle.

Morrison was released from prison on June 1. The school’s new administrator said Morrison has “no involvement” in the school at this time.

“I think she should be stopped from teaching anywhere in the United States of America and having children if she’s going to try to influence them the way she did,” said David Bailey, the detective assigned to the case. “If we can’t protect our children, who can we protect?

The incidents at Delta Institute show how a state-funded private school operated without any oversight, even after a criminal investigation into student mistreatment. But our reporting has uncovered several other such schools, and I encourage you to sign up for updates as we publish more about what we’ve discovered across the country.

The school is still operating and can still benefit from public funding from the state. This spring, however, it changed its name. It is now called North Star Academy.