{"id":220692,"date":"2026-05-05T14:43:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T14:43:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/220692\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T14:43:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T14:43:15","slug":"arkansas-school-director-jailed-for-being-ringleader-of-child-fight-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/220692\/","title":{"rendered":"Arkansas school director jailed for being ‘ringleader’ of child fight club"},"content":{"rendered":"

An\u00a0Arkansas school director\u00a0was sentenced to 30 days in jail, 120 days of house arrest with electronic monitoring and nine years of probation after prosecutors accused her of being the \u201cringleader\u201d of a makeshift child fight club.<\/p>\n

Mary Tracy Morrison, 51, the owner and director of The Delta Institute for the Developing Brain and the Engage program in Jonesboro<\/a>,\u00a0pleaded guilty\u00a0Monday to one count of permitting child abuse and four counts of contributing to the delinquency of a juvenile, according to KAIT.<\/p>\n

The judge also prohibited her from working with children in any professional capacity and ruled she must surrender her occupational therapy license and any other related licenses, complete a mental health assessment and follow all recommended treatments.<\/p>\n

Morrison was arrested in April 2025 after a mother told the Craighead County Sheriff\u2019s Office that her teenage son reported being mentally and physically abused while he was\u00a0at the school<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mary Tracy Morrison, 51, pleaded guilty\u00a0Monday to one count of permitting child abuse and four counts of contributing to the delinquency of a juvenile, according to KAIT. Craighead Co. Sheriff’s Office<\/p>\n

Morrison was arrested in April 2025 after a mother told the Craighead County Sheriff\u2019s Office that her teenage son reported being mentally and physically abused while he was\u00a0at the school. Craighead County Sheriff’s Department<\/p>\n

Video footage that deputies obtained through a search warrant revealed Morrison had \u201cinstructed the child to sit on the floor while being surrounded on the outside of a circle by 18 other juvenile students and Dr. Morrison,\u201d according to a probable cause affidavit, KAIT reported.<\/p>\n

The affidavit said that Morrison told the other students to put their hands on the child in the center and hit the child with an \u201cunknown object.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tStart your day with all you need to know\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMorning Report delivers the latest news, videos, photos and more.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tThanks for signing up!\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

As Morrison verbally berated the child, another student was seen kicking and choking the child.<\/p>\n

After the alleged incident, Morrison was observed \u201cgiving the juvenile a high five, displaying her pleasure with the student\u2019s actions,\u201d according to the affidavit.<\/p>\n

In addition to Morrison, Michael Bean, 38, was arrested in connection with the abuse. Craighead Co. Sheriff’s Office<\/p>\n

School employee Kristin Bell, 36, was also arrested. Craighead Co. Sheriff’s Office<\/p>\n

Police also arrested Kathrine Lipscomb, 45. Craighead Co. Sheriff’s Office<\/p>\n

The incident lasted 30 minutes and featured a teacher directing a student to strike a classmate \u201cin the private area,\u201d deputies said.<\/p>\n

Following the incident, Morrison \u201cinstructed the victim to apologize to all other students\u201d and told the students to never discuss what had happened again, the document stated.<\/p>\n

Three other school employees, Michael Bean, 38, Kristin Bell, 36, and Kathrine Lipscomb, 45, were also arrested in connection with the abuse.<\/p>\n

Fox News Digital could not immediately reach The Delta Institute for the Developing Brain or the Engage program for comment because no public or operational email address was listed for either organization.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An\u00a0Arkansas school director\u00a0was sentenced to 30 days in jail, 120 days of house arrest with electronic monitoring and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":220693,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[17748,8301,303,3130,9,11,10,10780,5271,901,58],"class_list":["post-220692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-arkansas","tag-child-abuse","tag-crime","tag-jail","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-school","tag-schools","tag-united-states","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220692\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}