Arkansas principal sentenced after directing students to attack 13-year-old classmate
An Arkansas school principal caught on camera telling 18 students to physically attack a 13-year-old student will spend 30 days in jail after reaching a plea agreement with prosecutors.
Dr. Mary Tracy Morrison, who faced 11 felony charges and 19 misdemeanor charges following her April 2025 arrest, pleaded guilty to one felony count of permitting child abuse and four misdemeanor counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
This week, a judge sentenced her to 30 days behind bars for the felony charge, along with a 12-month suspended sentence for each misdemeanor count and five years of probation.
According to a copy of the probation conditions order obtained by PEOPLE, Morrison must also complete 120 days of house arrest after leaving jail while wearing an electronic ankle monitor. The order further bans her from working with children in any professional role ever again.
A probable cause affidavit filed in the case and obtained by PEOPLE states that on April 17, 2025, the victim’s mother went to the Craighead County Sheriff’s Office to report that her son had “allegedly being abused, both mentally and physically, at the the ENGAGE School and The Delta Institute for Developing the Brain” in Jonesboro, a city about 70 miles north of Memphis near the Arkansas-Tennessee border.
Dr. Mary Tracy Morrison in April 2025 mugshot.
Craighead County Sherrif’s Office
Based on the mother’s allegations, deputies secured a search warrant that allowed them to “take possession of audio and video footage from the camera system located inside the school,” the affidavit states.
After reviewing the recordings, a detective quickly found footage involving the victim and Morrison.
According to the affidavit, Dr. Morrison “instructed the juvenile child to sit on the floor while being surrounded on the outside by a circle” made up of 18 students and herself.
The affidavit states that she could be heard “telling other students to put their hands on the juvenile child located in the center of the circle” and was also “seen putting her hands on the child as well as hitting the child with an unknown object.”
The boy remained seated in the circle for 30 minutes, the affidavit said, while Morrison “berated the child the whole time as she watched many of the other students sitting around the circle punch, kick and choke the juvenile victim, sitting inside the circle.”
At one point, Morrison appeared to give a student a high-five and was “displaying her pleasure with the students actions” after the student choked the victim, according to the affidavit.
The affidavit also states that Morrison asked one student “if the victim had ever made fun of him” after seeing the boy strike the victim hard. The same student then returned and proceeded “to choke the victim.”
This behavior was presented in court during Morrison’s first appearance back in April 2025, with Prosecuting Attorney Sonia Hagood referring to the principal as the “ringleader” of a “makeshift child fight club.”
A lawyer for Morrison, who is now serving her sentence at the Greene County Detention Center, did not respond to a request for comment.
Leave a Reply