In Arkansas, Tracy Morrison, the administrator of a private school (Delta Institute) funded with state voucher dollars was charged in 2025 with 11 felony counts of permitting child abuse and other crimes. Morrison had been captured on video leading an activity in which students physically abused (e.g., punched, pinched, choked) a student in the middle of a group circle for approximately 40 minutes in what she called a “restorative” technique to help the students treat each other respectfully.
This was one of several complaints of child abuse against the school.
Morrison pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 30 days in jail, 120 days of house arrest, and 5 years of probation. The only licensed educator at Delta Institute at the time of the attack was in the room but did nothing to prevent the abuse. At times she “directed the children to listen to Morrison.” Her punishment was six months of probation and 40 hours of community service. She is now director of education at the school, which continues to receive state voucher funding.
ProPublica documented this case and others in This Private School Had Students Scrub Floors and Attack a Fellow Classmate. The State Still Funds It. While the stories are horrific, the laws that created the voucher program with lax oversight and few enforcement mechanisms ensure that more stories like this are likely to emerge.
NC’s voucher laws are strikingly similar to Arkansas’s voucher laws. For example, “Arkansas is so hands-off that the state only requires that private schools conduct regular fire drills, keep immunization records and have an American flag and a flagpole. It doesn’t review schools’ curriculum or the backgrounds and capabilities of their operators.”
In NC, private schools aren’t required to have an American flag and flagpole, and they are required to follow testing requirements, operate for at least nine months per year, and keep accurate attendance records on file. But those are about the only departures from AR’s lax laws.
In AR, “In order to accept EFA money, private schools have to agree to meet some requirements, including that they have or are seeking accreditation, have operated for a year and promise to perform background checks and fingerprinting on all employees. (There’s no requirement that employees have no criminal history.) Schools affirm they’ll teach English, math, science and social studies and administer a standardized test of their choosing once a year. There’s no requirement to report students’ individual test scores to the state or to parents.”
In NC, to qualify to accept state voucher funds, only one staff person—the one with the highest decision-making authority—must pass a criminal background check. There is no requirement for any student-facing staff. Schools must administer a nationally standardized test, but the results are not made public. Although there are no content standards for NC private schools, the tests administered must cover English, grammar, reading, spelling, and math in 3-8 and verbal and quantitative areas in 9-12.
In the three years of the EFA voucher program in AR, “the state has only intervened at two schools, records show. And it’s never permanently blocked a school from taking public money, including at the Delta Institute — even after it became clear that terrible things had happened there.
NC currently has about three times as many voucher-accepting private schools as AR. In 2023, WFAE reported that just 5 NC schools had been removed from the program, all for failing to submit required documentation.
Like NC, “The contrast with what is required for public schools is striking. Arkansas’ Education Department monitors public schools, and state law regulates nearly every aspect of them, from teacher qualifications to what’s on district websites. Every district is required to post a tranche of “state-required information” online…”
NC isn’t the only state with vastly different standards for public schools and state-funded private schools. As long as the state continues to fund these schools, it’s the responsibility of lawmakers to ensure that there are clear regulations and punishments for schools/staff that put students in danger.
Laws are in place to ensure NC public schools are safe places for students and staff/students are held accountable when safety requirements are not met. Just this year, two public school administrators were indicted for failing to report abuse that took place at school. The same laws should apply to any private school that takes state funds.
The NC State Auditor has set up a tip line to report concerns about private schools and the state’s voucher program. You can access it here to report issues you want to have investigated.
If your concern also involves student safety issues, please contact local law enforcement in addition to submitting it through the tip line.