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Lyon Was Not the First Time...

Sun, 20 Sep 2026 19:33:16 GMT

Judge Creel: “It appears to be systemic if this is going on...”

Lyon Was Not the First Time…

When I started writing this article I intended it to be a follow-up to the previous one about screenshots of text messages that were uploaded to Facebook, which seemed to show back and forth conversation between Principal Lauryn Faciane and Assistant Principal Tonya Barth and school district officials, including Superintendent Frank Jabbia. And while they looked legitimate, there was no confirmation that they were. Boy, how much has changed in the last week since I wrote that article.

Over the last seven days more information has come out, to include the official transcript of the court hearing where Faciane and Barth pleaded guilty and a robo-call to parents from Jabbia, and all of a sudden, this turned into a much more comprehensive look at everything that has transpired not just in the last few months, but rather the last several years. Bear with me, because this is a lengthy but necessary story that needs to be told.

As I wrote this story, my mind kept returning to the families whose experiences appear in it, the children that have been let down, and the scores of good teachers and other employees who did the right thing in the face of threats of retaliation, including being fired. Before there was an investigation or a court hearing, there was a child who was abused, a parent noticing an injury, an unexpected call from school, and a concerned mom or dad trying to find out why their child had come home upset. Understanding what happened next means following those families through the calls, meetings, and requests for help that eventually became part of the record.

It makes you ask yourself: what is going on? My wife and I moved to St. Tammany over 20 years ago for the better schools and education. Did we get it wrong? Or has a once great organization experienced a decline? To answer that we have to look back more than just a few months. But where do we start?

After my second article, somebody posted a table on a community Facebook page listing fifteen cases involving St. Tammany school employees going back to 2018. Ok, to me that seemed like a good starting point because it covers a period of time just before Superintendent Jabbia was appointed, providing enough of a historical context to see how things were before he took office and since. I compared the list with publicly-available news coverage, police and sheriff's releases, available District Attorney announcements, teacher-certification records, and federal court rulings. The timeline below identifies the cases identified in the list posted to Facebook, reported outcomes, and gaps in that review:

Timeline: 2018–2026

The dates below identify the reported incidents or legal actions. Allegations and arrests are distinct from convictions. An outcome not located in the sources reviewed does not mean that no outcome occurred. One entry in the original Facebook table, dated 2021, could not be corroborated and is excluded.

2018 — Covington Elementary. Seven families filed civil lawsuits alleging abuse and neglect in a special-education kindergarten classroom. The suits named teacher Tammi Cole, paraprofessionals Cindy Nebe, Sheila Schneider, and Rebecca Leidinger Ducote, school administrators, and the School Board. The district disputed the allegations. No criminal charges were reported, and the civil outcomes were not located in the sources reviewed. The four classroom employees left the district; the principal and assistant principal remained. [Reporting on the lawsuits]( https://www.wwltv.com/article/news/local/investigations/nightmarish-classroom-culture-suit-claims-neglect-abuse-at-covington-elementary/289-587368393 ).

2022–23 — Woodlake Elementary. Paraprofessional Janine Rowell was accused of battering two autistic siblings. Reporting describes guilty pleas in September 2023 to two counts of simple battery and six months of probation. The parents also filed a federal lawsuit; its outcome was not located in the sources reviewed. [Louisiana Illuminator]( https://lailluminator.com/2024/01/05/corporal-punishment-2/ ).

January 2023 — Mandeville Middle, now Gayle Sloan Middle. Parents alleged that paraprofessionals Tiffany Bourgeois, Leslie Cookmeyer, and Angela Rayer physically mistreated their blind, autistic eleven-year-old son. Criminal charges followed in February 2025, and the three entered diversion that September. Several claims in the parents' civil suit survived an April 2025 ruling; that ruling did not decide whether the alleged concealment occurred. A later civil outcome was not established in this review. [Federal court ruling]( https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/louisiana/laedce/2:2023cv07426/267464/81/ ); [diversion reporting]( https://www.fox8live.com/2025/09/16/3-former-st-tammany-teachers-aides-enter-diversion-program-after-video-shows-incident-with-blind-student/ ).

January 2024 — Slidell-area elementary school. Paraprofessional Margarita Shevchenko received a misdemeanor summons for simple battery after allegedly striking a seven-year-old student with special needs. The district described it as a personnel issue. A court outcome was not located in the sources reviewed. [WBRZ]( https://www.wbrz.com/news/slidell-area-elementary-employee-arrested-for-hitting-special-needs-student-in-the-mouth ); [Fox 8]( https://www.fox8live.com/2024/01/22/st-tammany-school-employee-arrested-accusing-striking-special-needs-student/ ).

April and June 2024 — Slidell High. Teacher Alexa Wingerter was arrested in April on allegations involving prohibited sexual conduct with a student and purchasing alcohol for minors, with additional allegations leading to another arrest in June. She pleaded guilty in September 2025 to two counts of prohibited sexual conduct. Reporting described no jail time, fifteen years of sex-offender registration, and surrender of her teaching license. The disposition of the other counts was not reported in the sources reviewed. [Fox 8 plea reporting]( https://www.fox8live.com/2025/09/12/former-slidell-high-teacher-pleads-guilty-sexual-conduct-with-student/ ); [initial arrest reporting]( https://www.audacy.com/wwl/news/local/slidell-teacher-charged-with-sexual-misconduct ).

May 2024 — Pearl River High. Former teacher Arianna Kadinger was arrested on allegations of prohibited sexual conduct involving students, including alleged messages and photographs. Reports differed on the number of counts. A court outcome was not located in the sources reviewed. [Fox 8]( https://www.fox8live.com/2024/05/03/st-tammany-teacher-accused-inappropriate-contact-with-students/ ); [WWL/Audacy]( https://www.audacy.com/wwl/news/local/northshore-teacher-booked-for-sexual-conduct-with-students ).

May 2024 — E.E. Lyon. Paraprofessional Monica Bates was arrested on a cruelty-to-juveniles allegation involving a student. Police withheld further details, and the district said she was no longer employed. A court outcome was not located in the sources reviewed. [WWL/Audacy]( https://www.audacy.com/wwl/news/local/covington-school-employee-accused-of-harming-student ).

June 2024 — E.E. Lyon. Teacher Catherine Mumphrey and paraprofessional Lauren Brenckle were arrested on cruelty-to-juveniles allegations involving a student with disabilities and classroom video. The district said both were no longer employees. The later Covington Police report states that both entered guilty pleas, but independent confirmation of the pleas, counts, and sentences was not located. [WBRZ]( https://www.wbrz.com/news/two-st-tammany-parish-school-employees-arrested-for-cruelty-to-a-juvenile ); Covington Police report 2026-000624, pp. 12–14.

June 2024 — Slidell High. Teacher Shelby Cavignac was arrested on an allegation of prohibited sexual conduct between an educator and a student. A court outcome was not located in the sources reviewed. [WAFB/Fox 8]( https://www.wafb.com/2024/06/26/second-slidell-high-teacher-arrested-ongoing-investigation-into-inappropriate-relationship-with-student/ ).

February 2025 — Salmen High. Former teacher John Bowie was arrested on an allegation of indecent behavior with a juvenile involving reported inappropriate conversations with a student. A court outcome was not located in the sources reviewed. [Fox 8]( https://www.fox8live.com/2025/02/04/ex-salmen-high-teacher-arrested-inappropriate-conversations-with-student-slidell-police-say/ ).

March 2025 — Mandeville-area high school, unnamed in the reporting. Teacher Jarvis Harry was arrested on 305 counts: 142 involving pornography with juveniles, 102 involving prohibited sexual conduct between an educator and student, 60 involving computer-aided solicitation of a minor, and one involving indecent behavior with juveniles. Authorities alleged payments to students for photographs that escalated to explicit images. A court outcome was not located in the sources reviewed. The original Facebook table placed this entry in 2023; the reported arrest was in 2025. [Sheriff's Office release]( https://www.stpso.com/news_detail_T6_R99.php ); [Fox 8]( https://www.fox8live.com/2025/03/20/st-tammany-parish-teacher-arrested-soliciting-explicit-images-students-authorities-say/ ).

March 2026 — E.E. Lyon. Paraprofessional Marsha Ernest was arrested on an allegation of simple battery of the infirm involving a six-year-old with epilepsy and classroom video. The district declined to discuss employment, citing personnel confidentiality. A June 24 court date was reported, but an outcome was not located in the sources reviewed. [Fox 8]( https://www.fox8live.com/2026/04/07/st-tammany-school-aide-accused-battering-seizure-prone-6-year-old-classroom/ ); [Law&Crime]( https://lawandcrime.com/crime/teachers-aide-caught-on-film-throwing-seizure-prone-6-year-old-and-pinning-her-wrists-police/ ).

March 2026 — Riverside Elementary, Pearl River. Music teacher George Serban was arrested on simple-battery and cruelty-to-juveniles allegations involving Band-Aids allegedly placed over students' mouths. Reporting did not establish his employment status, and a court outcome was not located in the sources reviewed. [Contemporary reporting]( https://wheb.iheart.com/featured/lend-a-helping-can/content/2026-03-19-st-tammany-parish-teacher-accused-of-putting-band-aids-on-students-mouths/ ).

May–September 2026 — E.E. Lyon administrators. Principal Lauryn Faciane and Assistant Principal Tonya Barth were arrested May 27 and pleaded guilty September 2 to failure-to-report charges. Barth's count concerned December 2025; Faciane's concerned September 2024 and April 2026. Both received probation and fines; Faciane also received suspended jail sentences. The certified transcript provides the details discussed later in this article. Subsequent WWL reporting confirmed that neither remained employed by the district, without establishing when or how their employment ended. [Certified court transcript]; [WWL employment update, via Yahoo]( https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/covington-school-had-history-unreported-204709531.html ).

Fourteen of the entries on the Facebook list could be supported as to the reported allegations or charges. That does not mean fourteen convictions, though. I found reported misdemeanor guilty pleas in three timeline entries: Janine Rowell at Woodlake Elementary, Alexa Wingerter at Slidell High, and in the most recent case involving Faciane and Barth at E.E. Lyon. In the separate June 2024 Lyon classroom case involving Catherine Mumphrey and Lauren Brenckle, the later police report says both employees pleaded guilty, although I have not independently confirmed those dispositions. The January 2023 case involving three paraprofessionals at Mandeville Middle, now Gayle Sloan Middle, resulted in diversion in September 2025. The 2018 Covington Elementary entry involved civil lawsuits without reported criminal charges; I have not been able to establish how those lawsuits ended from publicly-availabel resources. For the remaining eight entries—Margarita Shevchenko, Arianna Kadinger, Monica Bates, Shelby Cavignac, John Bowie, Jarvis Harry, Marsha Ernest, and George Serban—I did not locate a criminal-case outcome in the free sources reviewed. Perhaps a review of paid repositories would provide a fuller account, but that is a gap in this review, not a finding that those cases remain pending or that no outcome occurred. Even without verifying the disposition, the more troubling aspect is that any of this is going on at all.

So with that, let's focus on the four cases for which the records describe more than just an allegation and/or arrest. These four cases describe what parents reported, how school officials responded, and how information reached people outside the school. As you read, keep one distinction in mind. The guilty pleas establish the reporting violations admitted by those defendants. A police report or court transcript also records what other people said, alleged, or concluded; its inclusion there does not automatically make every statement a finding by a court. Where I offer my own interpretation, I am drawing it from the information described here, with the gaps and disagreements included.

Sources: Case-specific links in the timeline above; Covington Police report 2026-000624, redacted; [September 2, 2026 court transcript]

First Things First

Before we dig in, let's get one thing out of the way. Everything you're about to read comes from somewhere: court transcripts, police reports, lawsuits, news coverage, and people who reached out to me directly. Some of it is nailed down cold — guilty pleas, a judge's own words, a detective's report. Some of it is allegations that haven't been proven. And some of it, I'll admit, is me connecting dots the way any reasonable person would after reading through this pile of records. I'm not going to stop every few paragraphs to remind you which is which — that gets old fast, for you and for me. Where the difference really matters, I'll say so. Otherwise, consider this your one and only disclaimer. Now let's get into it.

Covington Elementary, 2018

We start with a case involving special-needs children. One of the things that struck me as I was reviewing the list was how many of these cases involve our most vulnerable members of society. Abusing special-needs children...really? The fact that this is still a thing in 2026 is not just appalling, it is absolutely infuriating. And I'm not some naive dreamer that thinks that these things are never going to happen. There are bad people in the world, I get that. However, to the extent that we cannot fully eradicate evil, we have to deal with it swiftly and deliberately whenever it rears its ugly head. So the frustration isn't necessarily that these things happened, it's how the school district decided to deal with it, or rather, how they didn't.

The parents' concerns began with things they could see. According to the families' accounts reported at the time, children with disabilities at Covington Elementary were coming home with bruises, scratches, bite marks, and other injuries. Their families wanted to know what had happened during the school day. The school, however, was not being as forthcoming as one would expect in a situation like this. Their questions and concerns going unanswered, one mother eventually sent her son to school with a recorder concealed in his shirt. He had been coming home with marks on his body, and, according to reporting at the time, she had already taken her concerns to school leaders without getting them resolved. From her account, those concerns seemed to have fallen on deaf ears.

She's a mom. She's a parent. She's no different from you or me. Concern turns to frustration, anger, sadness, and the feelings of guilt consume you because here you are, a parent unable to protect your child from harm. Reading her account, I see a mother trying to protect her child—in this case, a child with special needs whom she was entrusting to the school system. She believed something was wrong, and her efforts to get answers had led her to send a recorder into the classroom. The employees at the school were supposed to be protecting her child and were responsible for his care. The family's allegations were that adults entrusted with that responsibility had mistreated him and that the parents had not been given an accurate account of what was happening. By the time she sewed the recorder into her child's clothing and sent him to school, she was just trying to find out what was happening during the hours when she could not be there to see it herself.

According to the family’s allegations, the recordings captured the very mistreatment they had feared: their child being physically and emotionally mistreated by the people responsible for teaching and protecting him. The recordings became part of a larger set of allegations. Two lawsuits, filed by seven families in 2018, named teacher Tammi Cole; three paraprofessionals, Cindy Nebe, Sheila Schneider, and Rebecca Leidinger Ducote; principal Melissa Eason; assistant principal Kristy Winget; and the St. Tammany Parish School Board. The families alleged that children were physically mistreated and denied food, that injuries went undocumented, and that parents’ signatures were forged on official school reports. Taken together, those allegations raised questions about whether wrongdoing had been concealed. Their complaints concerned both the treatment of the children and what the adults responsible for them told their families afterward.

The allegations were also very specific and disturbing. According to reporting on the lawsuit, the recordings captured adults screaming and using profanity toward the children, including a teacher saying she wanted to “break his f**king fingers off.” The lawsuit also alleged that the audio documented a teacher kicking a child in the chest and saying she hoped a sleeping student would never wake up, as well as encouraging a student to rub his own genitals (KNOE, August 10, 2018).

For parents whose children, because of their disabilities, could not readily explain their school day, the recordings provided another way to ask what was happening. A mother interviewed about the cases described being afraid to send her child back because he could not tell her what happened to him or speak up if someone mistreated him.

The allegations were, nevertheless, disputed by the St. Tammany school district, including claims that the families said the recordings supported. Reporting at the time described a response by the school district denying the claims in the June lawsuit. In the meantime, the four classroom employees accused in the allegations left the district, while the principal and assistant principal remained employed. Covington's police chief reviewed recordings and described them as inappropriate, but said he did not believe they established criminal conduct. No criminal charges were reported in the sources reviewed.

One parent's involvement continued beyond the litigation. Kathleen Cannino later described working with legislators and advocates on installing cameras in special-education classrooms. Louisiana enacted Act 456 in 2021, allowing parents to request cameras in certain classrooms, subject to funding provisions. That later effort grew out of concerns about how families could learn what was happening to children who had difficulty communicating for themselves.

This part of the district's history predates Frank Jabbia's appointment as Superintendent in October 2020. It belongs in the chronology, but it should not be attributed to his tenure as superintendent.

Sources: [KNOE, August 10, 2018](https://www.knoe.com/content/news/Louisiana-school-sued-for-alleged-abuse-of-special-needs-boy-490609771.html); [WDSU, August 7, 2018](https://www.wdsu.com/article/four-employees-no-longer-work-for-covington-elementary-following-alleged-abuse-of-special-needs-kids/22657592); [The Advocate, August 2018](https://www.theadvocate.com/new_orleans/news/communities/st_tammany/article_67d990c6-9993-11e8-b131-03ab077f05ac.html); [The Advocate, August 24, 2018](https://www.theadvocate.com/new_orleans/news/communities/st_tammany/article_1fffb540-a7cc-11e8-9afc-cb349ae71c6f.html); [KALB](https://www.kalb.com/content/news/Louisiana-school-sued-for-allegedly-abusing-special-needs-students-490608671.html); [Cannino's account](https://votecannino.com/home/); [Act 456 digest](https://legiscan.com/LA/supplement/SB86/id/206470/Louisiana-2021-SB86-Resume_Digest_for_SB86.pdf); [district superintendent biography](https://www.stpsb.org/our-district/leadership/superintendent).

Gayle Sloan Middle, 2023

Five years later, in early 2023, another family was trying to piece together what had happened to a child who depended on adults to get him through the school day. Their son was eleven years old, blind, and autistic. The school was Mandeville Middle at the time; it is now Gayle Sloan Middle. According to the parents' allegations, someone from the school called them after the events of January 30, 2023, and told them their son had been "love tapped" by an employee. One incident. That was the story. The parents say the way it was described left them with the impression there was little to worry about.

That impression did not survive long. The parents learned that three paraprofessionals, Tiffany Bourgeois, Leslie Cookmeyer, and Angela Rayer, had resigned. Three employees walking out the door over a "love tap" does not add up, and the parents started asking why. What they eventually alleged was not one incident but three: one aide kicked their son, another took away his cane and struck him with a walkie-talkie, and a third pushed his head into a cafeteria table. The April 2025 federal court order describes footage of these alleged incidents happening within roughly ten minutes, as a blind eleven-year-old made his way through the hallways and into the cafeteria.

Three adults abuse one child in the span of ten minutes. Incredible. And think about the phrase itself. A "love tap." An adult employee put hands on a blind, autistic eleven-year-old, and the word the school reached for, according to the parents, was a term of endearment. There is no version of a love tap that belongs in a classroom. None. So even before the parents learned about the resignations, even before they learned there were three incidents and not one, the school had already told them everything they needed to know about how it saw the situation. What happened to that child and how the school described it simply do not live in the same world. That gap, between what was done and how it was portrayed, is the whole story of this district's response, and it's reflected with just two words in a phone call.

According to the parents' account, school employees reported the incidents to Principal Cheryl Barton, and a school resource officer reviewed the footage. The parents say they learned about the kicking through the SRO, not from the principal. When they asked Barton why she had not told them about the other incidents, the parents say her answer was that she must have forgotten.

That is where an assistant superintendent enters the story, and her later involvement in the parents' requests for video is exactly why the central office question will not go away. When did central office personnel learn about each allegation? And once they knew, what did they do about it, if anything? The record does not fill in that whole sequence. But with three resignations, an SRO reviewing footage, and an assistant superintendent personally handling the family's video requests, it is almost impossible to believe the central office did not know what happened in that hallway.

Then came the fight over the video. The parents say they asked for it again and again and kept getting reasons why it could not be handed over. According to the allegations summarized in the court's order, Assistant Superintendent Kimberly Gardner eventually told them the footage had been deleted because more than thirty-one days had passed. The parents did not buy it. They alleged the district withheld the footage for nearly two years. They also alleged that Barton told a teacher not to discuss the incidents because she would handle them. "I'll handle it" is becoming a refrain in this series.

The first criminal charges identified in the reporting came a full two years after that January morning, when the Sheriff's Office charged all three former aides in February 2025. That September, they entered a diversion program. The civil lawsuit was already moving on its own track, so the two-year gap is about the reported criminal charges, not about a total absence of legal action.

For the parents, according to their allegations, the concern was not two years away. It was immediate: two of the employees they later accused of mistreating their son had continued working with him. The eventual charges and the diversion agreement do nothing to explain those earlier employment decisions. I have not been able to establish what conditions diversion imposed on these three individuals, including whether counseling was required. The reporting I reviewed also does not establish where they work today or whether they are still around children.

For this family, the story did not end with that first phone call from the school. It ran through the questions raised by three resignations, through the repeated requests for footage, and through the explanation that the video was simply gone. The criminal charges and the diversion program are another chapter, but they do not settle the parents' civil allegations about what they were told, or why information was not provided when they asked for it. You have to follow both tracks to understand this case: the alleged physical mistreatment of a child, and the separate fight over how the school responded.

The civil lawsuit kept going. In April 2025, Judge Eldon E. Fallon ruled on the School Board's request for summary judgment, which is a request to have claims thrown out without ever going to trial. He did not throw this one out. He allowed the disability-discrimination and battery claims to continue, and he declined to dismiss the federal civil-rights, negligent-training, and intentional-infliction claims at that stage, leaving room for certain arguments to come back later. He did dismiss the standalone negligent-infliction-of-emotional-distress claim.

So the ruling left the hard questions open for further proceedings, including whether the incidents were downplayed or concealed. The judge did not decide the truth of the parents' allegations; he sent those questions forward. I have not been able to establish how the civil case ended after that.

One more name to file away: Gardner. She comes up again later in this article, in a different case at a different school. When we get there, I'll lay out exactly what the record shows and what it doesn't. For now, just remember the name.

Sources: [A.F. v. St. Tammany Parish School Board, April 25, 2024 order](https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/louisiana/laedce/2:2023cv07426/267464/22/); [April 25, 2025 order](https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/louisiana/laedce/2:2023cv07426/267464/81/); [Fox 8, April 9, 2025](https://www.fox8live.com/2025/04/09/three-former-mandeville-school-aides-accused-striking-disabled-student-under-their-supervision/); [Fox 8, September 16, 2025](https://www.fox8live.com/2025/09/16/3-former-st-tammany-teachers-aides-enter-diversion-program-after-video-shows-incident-with-blind-student/).

E.E. Lyon, 2024

This earlier Lyon classroom case turns up inside the Covington Police report written by Detective Brian Brown, the same report that documents the recent investigation of the administrators. If you have been following this series, the opening will sound painfully familiar. A mother notices her daughter is not acting like herself after a classroom move during the 2023–2024 school year. The child has disabilities and a speech delay. She cannot simply come home and tell her mom what happened to her that day.

That is the thread running through every one of these accounts. The children in these stories were the ones least able to speak for themselves. When a child cannot tell you what happened, the adults around her become the only line of defense, and the question becomes what those adults did with what they saw. Reading these accounts side by side, I have real concerns about how this district handled suspected abuse and whether information was minimized or kept from parents. The vulnerability of these children is exactly why the families' fight for answers is the heart of this story.

So this mother did what any of us would do. She picked up the phone and called the principal. That principal was Lauryn Faciane. According to the account the mother later gave police, Faciane told her she would talk to the teachers involved. Then nothing. No follow-up, no call back, no answers.

A few months go by, and the mother starts seeing scratches on her daughter's arms. Her little girl is getting angrier, more irritable, and still cannot explain why. So the mother reaches out again, to the teachers and to Faciane, and this time she describes something she saw with her own eyes: an adult in that classroom pulling her daughter by the arm. The police report notes that photographs were taken documenting the injuries. This was not a vague feeling. There were pictures.

By the mother's count, she contacted Faciane roughly three separate times. Her husband, interviewed separately, remembered three phone calls of his own and said the principal told them she would handle it.

Then the phone rang in the other direction. The mother recalled someone calling to tell her that a bruise on her daughter had come from something that happened at home. You have been calling the school for months about injuries on a child who cannot speak up for herself, and the answer that finally comes back is that it must have happened under your own roof. She did not accept that explanation. And the sequence matters: injuries, repeated calls to the principal, and then a call pointing the finger back at the family, right at the moment the family was pressing the school for an explanation. Whatever the intent behind that call, that is what it looked like from the parents' side of the phone.

After they noticed bruising on their daughter's arm, the parents stopped waiting on the school and took her to an emergency room. The mother said plainly why: nobody had addressed their concerns. Hospital staff called 911. Lyon's school resource officer, Janel Walters, met them at the hospital, took the complaint, and said she would review the school's video.

That is how this family's story finally reached law enforcement. Not through the principal. Not through the district. Through an ER nurse who did what the school never did and picked up the phone. And notice what Walters said she would do next: review the school's video. That footage had been sitting at Lyon the whole time the parents were calling. The father told police that Faciane never shared anything from it with them. Police investigated, and based on what they found, a teacher and a paraprofessional were arrested in June 2024 on cruelty-to-juveniles charges. The later police report says both entered guilty pleas.

Detective Brown wrote that Faciane had the parents' complaints in hand. She had the photographs. And she did not report the suspected abuse to law enforcement or to the Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services. Brown also explained that he was new to the department in 2024 and, at the time, had not recognized that reporting failure for what it was: one piece of the larger pattern he would go on to describe in the later investigation.

Relation to the Court Transcript

Before we get to the later bathroom incidents, there is a date in the court record that needs explaining.

The recently released transcript identifies one of Faciane's guilty pleas as covering the period from September 1 through September 30, 2024. The prosecutor described abuse of a student by a paraprofessional during that month that was never reported to law enforcement. September 2024 is three months after two of her own employees were arrested in June on cruelty-to-juveniles charges arising out of the case of the child with special needs you just read about. Whatever review happened at Lyon after those arrests, and whatever lessons were supposed to have been learned, by September a child was allegedly being abused by a paraprofessional at that school and the principal, once again, did not pick up the phone.

The transcript does not say whether that September count concerns the same child, a later episode involving that child, or a different case entirely. What the plea confirms is a September reporting violation.

The transcript also describes a message Faciane received recommending that she call instead of email. The prosecutor read that as an instruction not to put the information in writing and said Faciane replied that she would do so. Anyone who has spent time inside a government agency knows what "call me, don't email" usually means. But in that passage the prosecutor did not name the sender, did not date the exchange, and did not expressly connect it to the September 2024 incident.

The unofficial screenshots posted to Facebook include a September 20, 2024, exchange attributed to Gardner and Faciane with strikingly similar wording. It is easy to put those two side by side and conclude they are the same exchange. They may well be. But here is where I pump the brakes, because this is one of the few places where the difference really matters: the transcript does not name the sender, and the attribution to Gardner rests entirely on those unauthenticated screenshots. If the attribution holds up, it puts a named central-office official on the other end of that message. Until then, it is an inference — a strong one, but an inference.

Through all of it, Faciane stayed. She remained principal of Lyon Elementary into the 2026 investigation. The records I reviewed leave unanswered what information reached the central office after the June 2024 arrests, what review followed, and whether the earlier parent complaints were ever part of that review. The September plea and the message discussed in court only add to the list of things somebody needs to explain: what was communicated, and to whom.

The district's public response to the June arrests shows it knew the employees had been arrested. Which officials knew about the parents' earlier calls, the photographs, and the alleged failure to report is a different question, and it is the one that matters when you ask what review followed and why Faciane was still running that school two years later.

Sources: Covington Police report 2026-000624, pp. 12–14; [WBRZ, June 6, 2024](https://www.wbrz.com/news/two-st-tammany-parish-school-employees-arrested-for-cruelty-to-a-juvenile); September 2 court transcript, pp. 6, 9 and 13; unofficial September 2024 screenshots, not independently authenticated.

E.E. Lyon, 2025–26

On December 1, 2025, another mother got a call from Lyon. There had been an incident involving her son, and she needed to come to the school.

In her account to police, she described sitting down with Faciane and Barth and being told that her son and another child had engaged in sexual conduct in a bathroom. The school called it childhood curiosity. By the time she got there, according to her account, administrators had already questioned both children and taken written statements from them. Her son had been asked to explain what happened several times. Then he was brought into the room and made to explain it again, this time in front of his mother.

She did not accept the curiosity label. Both children were suspended, and she said she had to sign paperwork before her son could come back to school. She objected to the wording on another form and said she was required to sign the original version anyway.

So she went looking for help on her own. She contacted Hope House to ask about services for her son. According to her statement to police, her contact there explained that the school should have reported the incident to law enforcement, because that is how an appointment gets arranged. Her statement does not say Hope House searched its records and confirmed there was no report. It describes an explanation of how the process was supposed to work. No further contact about an appointment followed, according to her account, and she ended up arranging private counseling herself. She also called the school board office. There, she said, an employee described the incident once again as mere curiosity and assured her the suspension would not show up on her son's record.

All right, before I move on, let's talk about the whole childhood curiosity thing. Two young children, sexual conduct in a school bathroom, written statements describing sexual touching already sitting in the administrators' hands, and the word that came back to this mother, first from the school and then from the school board office, was "curiosity." Whether children are curious is not the question. Children are curious about everything. The question is what the adults do when curiosity turns into something that a Hope House advocate, a police detective, and the mother herself all recognized as a matter for law enforcement. Reporting it is not a judgment on a child. Reporting it is how a child gets help. And when the same brush-off comes from the principal's office and the central office, according to this mother's account, that is no longer one administrator's bad call. That is how the district talks. Detective Brown put his own disagreement with the curiosity framing in writing, which tells you the people whose job it is to investigate these things did not buy it either.

Meanwhile, SRO Walters had been asked to look at video. According to Walters, Barth wanted to know how long the children had been in the bathroom and told her they had been playing. That was it. Walters said Barth never told her the encounter was sexual in nature. So she reviewed the hallway footage, wrote her notes, and when she asked for more information, Barth cited student confidentiality and, according to Walters, expressed concern that the matter could get messy and public.

Sit with what that means in practice. The one person in that building whose job is law enforcement was handed a video and told to time how long two kids were in a bathroom, without being told why anyone cared.

It was weeks later, through conversations among teachers, that Walters said she learned what the incident actually was. Until then she had footage of children walking in and out of a bathroom and no idea what those children had already told the administrators. The prosecutor described the same gap at the September hearing: the school had the children's written statements describing sexual touching, and that information never made it to the SRO.

Then it happened again.

On April 28, 2026, a nine-year-old disclosed another incident involving sexual conduct in a school bathroom. The other boy was the same child from December. This time the disclosure reached a para-educator, a teacher, the school counselor, and the principal.

The nine-year-old's mother said Faciane called to tell her something inappropriate had happened. When she asked what, she said Faciane put her off until the next day while the school reviewed cameras and talked to others. She did not wait. She asked her son, and he told her.

The next morning she showed up at school upset and unsure whether she could even walk through the door. In her statement she described a teacher urging her to go in and ask what happened. She did. The receptionist told her Faciane was in meetings. She waited about twenty minutes, left a request for a call, and went home. A teacher called her back. When she returned, the people waiting to meet with her were Detective Brown and SRO Walters.

Here is how the police got there. Walters said the school's mental health provider told her about the incident that morning. According to the police report, Walters called her supervisor, Sergeant Bart Ownby, who called the Criminal Investigations Division. That chain, starting with the MHP and not the front office, is what brought detectives into the building.

And the mother of the boy involved in both incidents? She said the school never notified her about April 28 at all. She was called to the school the following day, after police were already there. She told Detective Brown she felt the whole thing was being brushed aside because the children were young, and that she was getting no help from the school.

To be fair, Brown himself asked Faciane to have that mother come to school without explaining the incident over the phone. But that instruction concerned the April 29 call, after police were involved. It does not explain why, by the mother's account, the school had not contacted her the day before.

In court, the prosecutor described the lack of notice as potentially allowing the children to return to the same setting near each other the next day.

Faciane told Brown she had contacted her administration and been directed to notify the family. That passage in the report does not say who gave the instruction. When Brown asked whether she had reported the April incident to DCFS, she said no. Brown submitted reports on both the December and April incidents and wrote that DCFS confirmed it had no earlier report of either one. Two incidents involving the same child, four months apart, and the state agency charged with protecting children heard about neither one until a police detective picked up the phone.

The report also captures how officials explained themselves. The school board employee who had spoken with the December mother later questioned whether every incident like this needed to be reported. Brown recorded his disagreement with treating the conduct under investigation as ordinary curiosity.

There is one more account in the report, and it is about a different incident, so take it for what it's worth. An officer filling in as SRO described finding a child outside kicking a ball with no adult going to him. When the officer asked about calling the child's parents, he said a mental health provider told him administrators avoided those calls because they did not want to be criticized on Facebook. That is secondhand, and it concerns a different day. But if it is accurate, it tells you something about the instincts at work in that front office.

The Reporting Pattern Described in the Records

Taken together, these accounts come down to three things: protecting children, telling parents the truth, and reporting suspected abuse to the people whose job it is to investigate it. On that third point there is no ambiguity. The guilty pleas establish specific reporting violations by Faciane and Barth. The rest of what you have read here is a mix of allegations with different outcomes and outcomes I have not been able to establish. And the same concerns keep surfacing across these accounts, again and again.

But set the legal questions aside for a moment and look at how these parents describe finding out what happened to their kids. The Gayle Sloan parents were told their son had been "love tapped." The December Lyon mother was told it was childhood curiosity. The parents in the earlier Lyon case were told the principal would handle it. Three different conversations, three different schools or years. What they share is that in each one, the parent walked away knowing less than the school did.

In every one of these stories, a family was trying to find out what happened to their child during the school day. The Covington families were dealing with children who could not readily explain what had been done to them. The Gayle Sloan parents fought for footage. The earlier Lyon family ended up in an emergency room, where hospital staff called police. The December mother went looking for counseling on her own. Every one of those steps is something a parent had to do after the conversation with the school did not give them answers. The court records address a separate question, which is who bears legal responsibility. The parents' accounts address a simpler one: what does it take to get the truth out of this district about your own child.

The records described here involve more than one employee and more than one school. They leave real questions about supervision, about reporting procedures, and about how a concern travels, or fails to travel, from a classroom to a principal's office to the central office. Some of these accounts describe fear of retaliation or fear of discipline. What these records do not necessarily establish is a district-wide policy of abuse, concealment, or protecting its image at any cost...but, honestly, it's hard for the average person not to reach that conclusion. And I'll be the first to admit that a conclusion that big would need more evidence than the events and allegations laid out here provide, but what is clear is that something is definitely rotten in Denmark.

Evidence aside, what they do establish is enough for parents and taxpayers to justify their concerns. Two administrators at one elementary school admitted in open court that they did not report suspected abuse of children. Parents at two schools describe being given explanations that did not match what happened. And in more than one case, the truth reached law enforcement not because the school picked up the phone, but because a nurse, a mental health provider, or a parent did. Those are the facts. The questions they raise belong to the people who run this district, especially Superintendent Jabbia, and to the School Board as a whole that is supposed to be the voice of voters, taxpayers, and parents, and is supposed to hold the superintendent and the rest of the district accountable.

Sources: Covington Police report 2026-000624, pp. 1–10 and 14; September 2 court transcript, pp. 4–8.

In Judge Creel's Courtroom

Faciane and Barth were arrested on May 27. By September 2, they were standing in front of Judge Ellen M. Creel.

Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth Authement appeared for the State. Roy K. Burns, Jr. represented both administrators. Authement told the judge she had talked through possible outcomes with the children's parents or guardians, including probation, and none had objected. No family members came forward in the courtroom. No victim-impact statements were offered. These families had already been through enough, and they wanted it over.

Barth pleaded guilty to the reporting violation from December 1, 2025. Faciane pleaded guilty to two counts, one from April 28, 2026, and one from September 2024. Those are the dates in the plea proceeding.

Understand what a guilty plea is. It is not an allegation. It is not a screenshot somebody posted on Facebook. It is not a parent's account that the district can wave away. It is two school administrators standing in open court, with a lawyer at their side, telling a judge: yes, I did this. Everything that follows in this section is now part of the official record of the 22nd Judicial District, and they put it there themselves.

After hearing the facts on Barth, Creel asked whether the two were still employed. Their own lawyer said they might be on leave, he was not sure. Barth answered for herself: administrative leave. What the courtroom did not hear, and what WDSU reported from the district's response that same week, is that the leave was paid. Two administrators had just admitted to failing to report suspected abuse of children, and the St. Tammany Parish School Board was still paying them.

Then the prosecutor got to the messages on Faciane's phone. Some of the wording was familiar to anyone who had seen the screenshots circulating online. But this was different. This was a prosecutor reading them to a judge as the factual basis for a guilty plea, and the defense attorney agreeing the facts were sufficient.

One message described the administrators' reaction to the investigation and called the idea of reporting everything ridiculous. Ridiculous? Reporting the suspected abuse of children, which the law requires of every principal in this state, was the thing they found ridiculous. No, they are the ridiculous ones!

Another message referred to "Frankie," whom the prosecutor identified as Jabbia, and described him saying that this could happen to anybody at any time. Judge Creel asked the obvious question: was that concern for the children? No, the prosecutor told her. The message was about the administrators, the teachers, and the others who had failed to report. This could happen to any of us. Not any of the kids. Any of the adults who might get caught.

The prosecutor also read an administrator's account that he wanted to protect them, and that child-on-child abuse was an area they were not necessarily reporting. This is in the official court record! A school administrator admitting that child-on-child abuse in St. Tammany Parish schools is not being reported! The prosecutor characterized the messages as an acknowledgment of reporting failures inside the schools. To be clear: those were relayed accounts, not a recording of Jabbia speaking. But the content is in the record, and nobody in that courtroom disputed it.

And then the detail that closes every escape hatch. Authement told the court that Detective Brown and Hope House had provided training specifically on reporting child-on-child abuse, and that these administrators attended it. They were trained on exactly this by the same detective that was assigned to investigate it. They sat in the classroom. They heard a detective and a child advocacy center tell them what the law required. And they didn't do it. And afterward, in case you missed it in the paragraph above, a message on the principal's phone admits that child-on-child abuse is something they were not necessarily reporting. That is not confusion. That is not a gray area. That is a choice.

Judge Creel read the reporting statute out loud. She told the two of them that principals and assistant principals are on the list of mandatory reporters, and she put it in words nobody could misunderstand: "The buck stops with you people." Before she accepted Barth's plea, she asked her to think about the children by name. The judge would not speak those names in open court because they were child victims. But she wanted Barth to know that she knew who they were, and that the judge knew she knew.

Barth got two years of probation under Article 894, a $500 fine, and court costs. Creel said she would not entertain any request to end that probation early. Faciane got two years of probation, a $500 fine on each count plus costs, and six months on each count, suspended. The judge refused to give Faciane Article 894 treatment, and she said why: the principal was more culpable than the assistant principal. The buck stopped with her, and the judge sentenced her that way.

Creel explained that the families wanted this finished without dragging their children into a courtroom to relive it. Their wishes were part of why she accepted probation. Then she said something you do not hear from the bench very often. She was disappointed she did not have more latitude in sentencing. Read that plainly. The judge looked at what these two did and wished the law let her do more.

When she came back to the messages, she did not mince words. "The selfishness in the text messages. There was zero concern exhibited for children, zero." She called out what she saw as an attempt to shift blame onto the SRO, the officer who was handed hallway footage and told to time two children in a bathroom without being told what those children had already reported. And then the line that should be ringing in every ear at the central office: "It appears to be systemic if this is going on." Exactly! Systemic. That is not my word. It is Judge Creel's. The judge said the quiet part out loud, on the record, after reading the messages these administrators were sending to each other. For anyone with a brain, it's obvious that these are not one-offs. This is how the district is choosing to operate, and it is outside of the law.

At the end of the proceeding, Creel directed that the administrators be fingerprinted and sent to probation. Then she told them to leave her courtroom. When they did not move fast enough, she told them again.

Source: September 2, 2026 transcript, State of Louisiana v. Tonya Barth, 4875-M-2026, and State of Louisiana v. Lauryn Faciane, 4876-M-2026, 22nd JDC, reported by Donna Lanata Heath, CCR, pp. 3–15.

The Employment Questions

The court hearing answered the criminal charges against Faciane and Barth. What the district did about their jobs is a different story, and it is one the district has told in pieces.

WDSU's reporting from the week of the September 2 pleas said both were still on paid administrative leave, citing the district. That is the detail Barth's courtroom answer left out. Not just leave. Paid leave. Through the arrest in May, through the summer, through the morning they stood in front of Judge Creel and admitted what they did, the checks kept coming.

Then, sometime after that, they were gone. WWL Louisiana reported that a district spokesperson confirmed both were no longer employed. When did that happen? Were they fired, or did they resign? The report does not say, and the district has not said. So their status has changed, but the timing and the terms of their exit are still a blank.

Now compare that to how the district handled the people below them. On the day Monica Bates's arrest was announced in May 2024, the district said she was no longer employed. Same day. Within days of the June 2024 Lyon classroom arrests, the district said the teacher and the aide were no longer employees. Days. Those announcements do not tell us whether those employees resigned or were dismissed, or when the decisions were actually made. But the public message went out fast, and it was unambiguous.

For administrators like Faciane and Barth who failed to report, the district's reaction was less immediate...paid leave for months, a guilty plea, and then a quiet confirmation weeks after the fact that they were no longer around.

And in other cases, there was barely a message at all. In the Slidell battery case, the district called it a personnel issue. In the Ernest case, it declined to discuss employment and cited confidentiality. In the Serban case, reporting described the employment status as unavailable while the district talked about student safety instead.

Put those side by side and you get a district that speaks clearly and quickly when the person in trouble is a classroom teacher or an aide, and goes quiet when the person in trouble is an administrator. That is what the public record shows. What it does not show is why. The announcements do not explain what policies were applied, what the reasons were for each decision, or what review, if any, was conducted on Faciane and Barth between their arrest and the end of their employment. Their departure does not answer the question of what the district was doing during the months between arrest, paid leave, guilty plea, and exit. Those dates and those decisions are what it would take to compare how this district treats the people at the bottom of the building with how it treats the people running it. The district has them. The public does not. It's time the public gets the whole truth and nothing but the truth from the school district.

Sources: Case-specific links in the timeline above; [WDSU reporting dated September 4](https://www.bishop-accountability.org/2026/09/northshore-elementary-school-principal/); [Fox 8 district response](https://www.fox8live.com/2026/05/28/two-women-booked-child-abuse-st-tammany-court-records-show/); September 2 transcript, p. 6;

[WWL Louisiana employment update, via Yahoo](https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/covington-school-had-history-unreported-204709531.html), accessed September 19, 2026.

Flashback 2020: Jabbia's Interview

While I was writing this article, I remembered that the interviews for the superintendent job had been posted on the official School District YouTube Channel. So I went back and reviewed the video , and it is worth your time to watch how Frank Jabbia said he would run the school district before he got the job. I would highly recommend you watch that interview yourself.

In his opening remarks, he talked about listening to students, parents, and employees, and treating people with dignity and respect. Later in the interview, he described parents who were afraid of repercussions if they raised concerns. In a separate answer about employees, he talked about constructive contact between teachers and the central office, and about building an environment where people could speak openly. He said student needs should be the starting point for budget decisions. Asked how his own performance should be judged, he talked about high expectations and accountability for the superintendent. He described giving Board members the information they needed. And on the Board's role, he said this: "Your job is to question us. Our job is to answer." For the record, I wholeheartedly agree with everything the superintendent said in his interview about how the job of superintendent should be undertaken.

With that in mind, I want you to hold onto every one of those lines, because the rest of this section is about what happened when parents raised concerns, when employees spoke openly, and when the people whose job it is to ask questions asked them.

All this section does is put the promise and the record on the same page. You judge the distance between them.

Start with May 18, 2026. Jabbia and Steve Alfonso sat down with Covington detectives. According to Detective Brown, Jabbia told them the district's JPAMS record showed the SRO had been notified. Alfonso handed over the record. It described an internal investigation. It did not document notice to the SRO. It did not document notice to DCFS. And according to Brown, Alfonso told Jabbia, right there in the meeting, that the notification he was describing was not in the document.

Think about that. The superintendent of one of the largest school systems in Louisiana, whose budget this year exceeds half a billion (with a "B") dollars, is in a room with police detectives investigating whether his administrators failed to report the abuse of children, and the thing he tells them is contradicted by his own paperwork and subordinate before the meeting is over. What Jabbia was relying on when he said it is not explained in the report. But his interview answer of "your job is to question us, our job is to answer" sounds a lot different when that answer does not survive contact with law enforcement or with the district's own file.

Now the teachers. Brown wrote that he spoke with current and former Lyon teachers on May 24 and 25, and that most of them wanted to talk off the record. Why? Because they were afraid of being fired or disciplined. These are the employees who, six years earlier, were promised by Jabbia an environment where people could speak openly. Now, in 2026 they were asking a police detective not to use their names for fear of retaliation by the district that Jabbia runs.

And in that same section of the report, Brown reproduced a message attributed to Jabbia. The message proposed complaints against an employee who had cooperated with police and the SRO. Then it moved to termination recommendations. The stated grounds were alleged late reporting by that employee and alleged inaction by the SRO.

Read that again, and take it all in. In the middle of a criminal investigation into administrators who did not report child abuse, Jabbia appeared to be less concerned about the administrators who actually broke the law, and more concerned about going after the employee who cooperated with the police. Did Jabbia follow through on going after the people who cooperated? Were the complaints ever filed, and what came of them? Was anything done about the fears those teachers described? Nobody has answered those questions. But the instinct on display is unmistakable, and it is the exact instinct Jabbia told the Board in 2020 he was going to root out. He described parents who feared repercussions for speaking up. Six years later, the record has his own employees feeling the same way, and a message with his name on it proposing repercussions for at least one of them.

Then add what came out at the September hearing: the messages in which another administrator described comments attributed to Jabbia, the "this could happen to anybody" line, the account of wanting to protect them. Getting to exactly what was said in the administrators' meeting and what directions followed would take more records, or the people who were in the room telling the truth about it. But step back and look at the whole picture. A man told the School Board he would listen to parents, protect employees who spoke up, and answer the Board's questions. The record now shows parents who could not get answers, teachers who would only talk to police off the record, a message proposing to go after an employee who cooperated with law enforcement, and a superintendent's statement to detectives that his own document did not back up. The contrast does not need me to exaggerate it. It is sitting in the district's own YouTube channel and the Covington Police Department's own report, and anyone can go read both.

Sources:

[STPPS interview recording]( https://youtu.be/OQcHFB7A1bE?si=R3T5SZIciHljq23f&t=372 ), particularly 10:21–11:16, 16:09–19:21, 20:34–21:51, 28:09–30:48, 31:25–34:28 and 1:05:50–1:09:24; Covington Police report, pp. 10–11; September 2 transcript, pp. 8–10. Interview references were reviewed against YouTube's automated transcript, not a certified transcript.

The September 17 Message

Fifteen days after his principal and assistant principal pleaded guilty, Jabbia sent a recorded message to parents and employees , and a transcript has been shared both on Facebook and by local news outlets.

He described a serious situation at an elementary school involving mandatory reporting. He said the district had added safeguards to strengthen reporting and documentation. He said the district was working with DCFS, the District Attorney's Office, and law-enforcement partners on guidance, training, and support. And he said student safety and well-being were the district's highest priority.

Now read what the transcript does not say. It does not say Lyon. It does not say that two administrators pleaded guilty in criminal court. It does not say what happened to their jobs. It calls what happened a "situation," and it places that situation in the prior [school] year. Situation? If the school superintendent believes that two administrators pleading guilty in criminal court is just a "situation," we have a lot of work to do! This is a robocall to every parent in the parish about the criminal failure to report suspected abuse of children, and the man delivering it could not bring himself to say the name of the school or the word guilty. Parents at Lyon found out what happened to their kids from police detectives and from each other. Now the district's official account, delivered a full two weeks after the pleas, is vaguer than the Facebook screenshots.

And the safeguards? The message says they were added. It does not say what they are. It does not say when they took effect. It does not say what an employee is now supposed to do differently on the day a child tells them something. "We added safeguards" is the sentence you say when you want credit for fixing something without anyone being able to check whether you did. And what, pray tell, could those "added safeguards" be? The law seems to be pretty clear, so I wonder what needed to be added other than telling district employees that they need to comply.

Somebody did try to check. Brant Osborn, president of the St. Tammany Federation of Teachers and School Employees, posted about the call on Facebook along with the Federation's response. The Federation asked for exactly the things the message left out: the written procedures, the actual directions employees are being given about contacting DCFS and law enforcement, whether the new safeguards were reviewed with the Board and with outside agencies, and what reporting activity has followed. Then it asked the question that matters most in a district where teachers were talking to a detective off the record for fear of their jobs: what protections exist for employees who report concerns or cooperate with investigators?

WWL also reported the district's position that it follows mandatory-reporting laws. Consider the audacity of that sentence. Two of its administrators had just admitted in open court, fifteen days earlier, that it did not. Both things cannot be true at the same time. The station also reported that Jabbia described cooperation with outside agencies on employee guidance and training, and reaffirmed student safety as the priority. It also reported that a special board meeting was scheduled for Monday, September 21, on the district's response.

Jabbia told the Board in 2020 that their job was to question him and his job was to answer. Well...we're waiting!

Sources: Federation Facebook post and accompanying transcript dated September 17, 2026. The account of the recorded message follows the supplied transcript; the original audio has not been independently checked against it. [WWL Louisiana employment and district-response update, via Yahoo](https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/covington-school-had-history-unreported-204709531.html), accessed September 19, 2026.

Direct Contacts From Concerned Individuals

Since the earlier articles ran, people have been reaching out. Comments, emails, conversations in parking lots. Two of those accounts are from teachers, and both are about what happened when they tried to report a problem. I have not independently verified either one. I am keeping the names, the schools, and the administrators they identified out of this. But I am sharing the substance, because these two people did not have to say anything, and what they said sounds a lot like what a police detective wrote down in May.

The first came through the contact form on my website. The writer identified herself as a former district teacher who left several years ago. At one school, she recalled, the principal sent an email threatening immediate dismissal if staff discussed classroom violence or abuse outside the school, or even with teachers who were not directly involved. She attributed that instruction to Superintendent Jabbia and said some teachers she knew at other schools described getting similar messages, while others had not. She described quiet conversations with a counselor about what to do, and being afraid of losing her job. I have not seen the email, so I cannot tell you its wording or who actually sent it. The attribution to Jabbia is hers, not mine.

The second account showed up in a public comment. The writer said she taught a self-contained special-education class and reported two paraprofessionals for mistreating nonverbal autistic students. Once again, the abuse of special-needs children rears its ugly head. In this case, non-verbal children who are unable to tell anyone what's happening to them. She alleged that her principal discouraged her from talking about it, so she went around the principal and contacted the authorities and the school board herself.

Then, she said, she was pushed out. The administrator, she said, was later promoted. When she tried to come back to the district two years later, she said she was turned down because she had broken her contract. I have not reviewed the documentation she says she has, and I do not have the district's side of any of it.

Here is what twenty years of representing employees has taught me about stories like these. A conversation is where you find out there is a problem. It is never where you prove one. After the conversation come the records: the email somebody swears they still have, the complaint they filed, the response that came back, the personnel file. That work has not been done on these two accounts yet. But they sure do rhyme with what is already sitting in the public record, and they are two more entries in a growing pile of claims circulating throughout this parish, online and in conversation.

But there is one thing that is not anecdotal. The Covington police report records Lyon teachers telling Detective Brown they were afraid of being disciplined for talking to investigators. That is documented. It is what those teachers said to a police officer, in the middle of a criminal investigation, in 2026. And when a former special-education teacher and a former classroom teacher come to me, years apart, from different schools, describing the same fear in nearly the same words, I am not in a position to call it a coincidence, and I am not in a position to call it proof. What I can tell you is that this is the next thing that has to be run down, with these teachers' documents in one hand and the district's account in the other.

Because think about what it means that these accounts came to me at all. A campaign website contact form and a comment section are not where teachers are supposed to have to go to report that children were mistreated and that they were punished for saying so. That they ended up here tells you something about where they felt they could not go.

What Remains Unresolved

The Facebook table is what prompted me to take a look back. The common thread with all of these stories: it was parents that had to demand accountability first. Not once in any one of these incidents was it the school or the administration taking proactive steps to identify abuse, report it, and correct it before it got worse. One family used a recorder. Another kept asking for video after three aides quietly resigned. At Lyon in 2024, it took a trip to the emergency room to get law enforcement involved. In the later Lyon case, the SRO said she learned what the children had actually reported weeks after administrators asked her to review footage, and only because teachers were talking. Every time, somebody outside the front office had to force the door open.

And the door is still not all the way open. What did the central office receive after the spring 2024 Lyon complaints and the June arrests? What review followed? How does the September 2024 count relate to the earlier classroom case, if it relates at all? Who sent the call-instead-of-email message described in court, and what was it about?

Then the later investigation. What was Jabbia relying on when he told detectives that JPAMS documented SRO notification, when the document his own staffer handed over did not? What became of the proposed complaints against the employee who cooperated with police and the SRO who was left in the dark? What information reached the Board, when did members get it, and where is the follow-up written down?

The employment questions are separate from the criminal ones, and they are not answered by a spokesperson saying two people no longer work here. When did their employment end, and how? What review, if any, is still going on? How much did this parish pay two administrators between May 27 and the last day of their paid leave, and were any of their legal fees covered by taxpayers? And the September 17 robocall opened a new set of questions: what are the written safeguards, when did they take effect, and what records show they are actually being used?

There is also an unofficial May 25 message that anticipates something would be offered to Faciane and Barth and that the administrators would not surrender to authorities the next day. That message needs to be authenticated and the records around it need to be produced before anyone draws a conclusion from it, but the public has a right and need to know.

And the eight cases with no verified outcome still need dispositions from court or prosecutorial records, including the March 2025 case involving high school teacher Jarvis Harry. This is one of the most disturbing cases involving 305 specific counts: 142 involving pornography with juveniles, 102 involving prohibited sexual conduct between an educator and student, 60 involving computer-aided solicitation of a minor, and one involving indecent behavior with juveniles. I'm surprised this case has not received more publicity. Not finding an outcome does not mean a case is still pending, and it does not mean nothing happened. It means the public record is incomplete, and that is its own problem.

The September 2 hearing settled the charges against Faciane and Barth. It also did something the district never did: it put the prosecutor's account of those messages and a judge's reaction to them into a public record where nobody can un-see them. The September 17 announcement described changes that still have to be examined line by line. As more records surface, they may finally explain what happens in this district in the space between a parent's first phone call, an administrator's response, and the moment somebody outside the building finds out.

The court proceeding was about mandatory-reporting duties and two administrators' admitted failure to carry them out. Judge Creel's remarks went further. She talked about the effect on children and families, about the training these administrators sat through, and about the attitude she saw in the messages in front of her. Those remarks were aimed at the two defendants and the record before her. The remaining records and responses are what will show what other officials knew, what they did about it, and what actually changed afterward.

Those are the questions left standing after the pleas and after the quiet news that the two administrators are gone. The Board meets Monday night, and the importance of this meeting cannot be overstated. I know that we all have our regular lives to lead, but for those able to attend, I highly encourage you to do so. Even if you do not participate in the public comments, your presence there will show the Board that you're not only concerned about what's been going on, but that you also demand accountability. That you do not approve. That you expect them to hold the district, especially Superintendent Jabbia, accountable for their actions or lack thereof. That you do not tolerate the abuse and neglect of children, especially those that are the most vulnerable. And that you want to provide a safe and productive workplace for the thousands of good teachers and employees in the trenches every day who are doing their job - these folks deserve to be commended and protected for doing the right thing, not retaliated against. Every parent and taxpayer in this parish deserves to be heard. We demand accountability!

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Central Trades & Labor Council Endorses Ben Banchs for School Board District 7

Wed, 16 Sep 2026 21:45:36 GMT

"We will do all we can from our end to ensure your success."

Central Trades & Labor Council Endorses Ben Banchs for School Board District 7

I’m proud to announce that the Central Trades & Labor Council, AFL-CIO, serving St. Tammany, Tangipahoa, and Washington parishes, has endorsed my candidacy for St. Tammany Parish School Board, District 7.

The council’s delegates voted to endorse me at their September 9 meeting. I received formal notification in a September 16 letter from Council President John J. Sabathe.

The council also committed to notifying its affiliated local unions and union members living in District 7 about the endorsement and encouraging participation in the November 3 election.

“We will do all we can from our end to ensure your success,” Sabathe wrote.

This endorsement joins the support I have already received from the St. Tammany Federation of Teachers and School Employees. I am grateful to both organizations for their confidence in me and for the work their members do throughout our community.

Our public schools connect us. They are places where children discover their abilities, educators and school employees dedicate themselves to helping students succeed, and families look for opportunities for the next generation. A strong education should prepare students for the many paths available to them, including college, skilled trades, and other careers.

For me, these endorsements are both an honor and a responsibility. Support must be met with a willingness to listen, ask thoughtful questions, and put in the work that public service requires.

Thank you to President Sabathe, the council’s delegates, and the St. Tammany Federation of Teachers and School Employees for your support. I look forward to continuing conversations with residents across District 7 about the future of our schools.

Ben Banchs | St. Tammany Parish School Board, District 7 | #94

Make sure to like and share this and other stories on my Facebook page .

EE Lyon: New Messages Raise More Questions

Mon, 14 Sep 2026 15:56:27 GMT

New Lyon Elementary Messages Raise Questions About District Leadership

This is Why School Safety is My #1 Priority

A police report on the incidents at E.E. Lyon Elementary in Covington was made public last week. It lays out, in the detectives' own words, a series of failures by the school's leadership. I wrote about that report in my previous article , and I asked a question: had protecting the school system's image become more important than confronting serious problems openly?

It took less than 72 hours to get an answer. Screenshots of text messages and other records from the investigation started circulating on a community Facebook page. One caveat: those screenshots did not come from an official source. As far as I know, nobody has checked them against the originals, and there is no way to know if they are complete. Anything below that comes from them should be read with that in mind. That said, they look real, and if the district claims they are fake, it can say so. As of this article, no one has challenged their authenticity. What they do show makes me more concerned, not less, about how district leadership handled this and about whether employees felt safe coming forward.

What We Know for Sure

This part comes from local news coverage and the police report, not the screenshots. On September 2, former Principal Lauryn Faciane and former Assistant Principal Tanya Barth pleaded guilty to failing to report child abuse and were sentenced to probation. District Attorney Colin Sims said both incidents involved sexual conduct between students aged eight and nine on campus, that neither was reported to law enforcement, the school resource officer, or DCFS, and that both administrators had received specific training on reporting child-on-child abuse. In his words: "School personnel do not have the discretion to minimize such conduct."

The pleas settle, for now, the administrators' role. They do not settle the district's role, and they do not answer whether anybody above the school level followed policy or state law.

The December Incident

The police report identifies December 1, 2025, as the first incident. It was handled inside the school with no notice to the SRO, police, or DCFS. In a screenshot presented as an excerpt from the forensic report on Barth's phone, a staff member wrote to Barth that afternoon describing two children seen together in a bathroom stall and asked her to check the cameras. That evening the same person asked whether the situation was "as bad as I am thinking." The reply attributed to Barth: "Eh kids being kids. I'll share tomorrow."

The police report adds the SRO's account of that same day. According to the report, Barth had her pull the video but told her the children were "playing in the bathroom," that it could not be discussed for confidentiality reasons, and that the matter "could get messy" and she "did not want it to get out." The SRO says she found out what actually happened a couple of weeks later from teacher gossip, not from administration.

That is not a training problem. That is a decision, and one that was not only wrong but also illegal. A staff member flagged it, the SRO pulled the video, and the administrator with the information decided it was kids being kids and that she did not want it to get out. Parents deserve to know how a serious concern became an internal matter and why the required report was never made. Frankly, when I think about this as a parent, Barth's dismissive attitude is absolutely infuriating. The ease with which she dismissed an incident of a sexual nature between two students and then decided not to notify the parents is a dereliction of duty on multiple fronts. Legally and morally, that is not her decision to make. Period.

The Superintendent's Meeting with Police

According to the report, Superintendent Frank Jabbia told detectives on May 18 that the SRO had been notified of these incidents and that the school's JPAMS record proved it. Detectives obtained the record. It showed only that the school ran its own investigation. It said nothing about the SRO or DCFS being notified. The report says Steve Alfonso told Jabbia during the meeting that the notification was not in the record, and that Jabbia remained "adamant" the SRO was being advised. A central-office employee Jabbia later pointed detectives to said SRO notification was "school board policy," but had no firsthand knowledge that it happened here.

So the superintendent walked into a police station, told detectives a record said something it did not say, was corrected by his own associate superintendent in the room, and kept insisting. Then he sent the detectives to someone who could only tell them what the policy was supposed to be. What was he relying on? Once detectives showed him the record did not say what he said it said, what did he do to fix it? Those are not gotcha questions. He is the superintendent. He should be able to answer them in about thirty seconds. He didn't.

The Employees Who Spoke Up

Now the part that bothers me most, and the reason I do this work for a living.

The report says detectives spoke with numerous current and former Lyon teachers on May 24 and 25, and that most would only talk off the record because they feared termination or discipline. In that same window, Jabbia sent a text message, with the detective included on it, announcing that he would file an official complaint against the SRO and against an employee who, he said, reported an older incident more than a year late, and that "they will be recommended for termination by STPPS." Read that again. The employee who reported abuse and the SRO who was supposed to receive the reports were the two people the superintendent named for termination. Not the administrators that actually broke the law. By the way, as of the writing of this article, the two administrators who were arrested and pleaded guilty to failing to do their job are still on the district's payroll. Make it make sense...

Either way, I don't have a problem with an actual late report being investigated. What I do have a problem with is the threat of investigating a late report in retaliation for making the actual report. And the fact that Jabbia's message went out while teachers were telling police they were afraid of exactly this makes his reaction that much more concerning. I've seen this behavior on the part of management numerous times in my career. It's meant to have a chilling effect on employees. Keep your mouth shut or lose your job and livelihood. It's the greatest betrayal that someone in a position of authority can perpetrate on the folks that work for them, especially when it comes to topics like these where clear violations of policy and law took place and, in this instance, where the safety and welfare of children is involved. That's what makes this case disturbing on a number of levels.

The screenshots show the threat and retaliation mechanisms in action. On the morning of May 26, Barth forwarded Jabbia screenshots of text threads circulating among staff, wrote "I lost my job for a witch hunt," and identified the SRO by name. Jabbia asked who two of the people in the threads were. Barth told him one was a third-grade teacher: "the teacher in 3rd that the Detective has reached out to after the school board meeting. She was the most negative one who spoke. Supposedly she put the detective in touch with 2nd grade teachers." The next morning, the day Barth turned herself in, Jabbia asked for that teacher's "official name" and whether two names belonged to the same person. Barth confirmed and added that the teacher also uses her maiden name.

Think about what that teacher did. She stood up at a school board meeting and said something the district did not want to hear. When a detective called, she talked to him. When he needed to reach other teachers, she apparently helped. In any functioning organization, that is the employee you want. At the St. Tammany central office, she became "the most negative one who spoke," and the superintendent wanted her legal name, including the one on her personnel file.

I don't know what happened to her afterward. The screenshots don't show it, but I definitely want to know. I have handled enough of these cases to know how this plays out. First you find out who talked. Then you get their real name. Then the employee gets written up for something unrelated. The questions I would want answered as a member of the school board, the entity that Jabbia is supposed to answer to, is what did he want with her name? What did he do with it? Did he call anyone about her? Did he pull her file? Was any action taken against her and for what reason? In these settings, nobody asks for an employee's official name because they are planning to thank them.

Here is why this matters beyond one school. Since I started this campaign I have heard the same thing from several teachers and support staff that are personal friends, in almost the same words: they will not raise a concern because they are afraid it will cost them their job. And now we have those same fears captured and validated in an official law enforcement report. The police wrote down that Lyon teachers were afraid to talk. Then the superintendent's own texts show a termination threat aimed at the people who reported, and a hunt for the legal name of the teacher who cooperated with police. The fear is not a rumor. It is a reasonable reading of how the central office operates.

Reputation

On May 25, Faciane told a district colleague identified in the records as Burkett that she planned to call "Frankie" and wanted him or someone else to mention the situation at the next day's meeting "so it comes out in a more positive way than everyone just seeing us arrested." On May 26 she wrote: "My only hope is that our colleagues support us and kill negative comments with positive ones."

People facing charges are entitled to a defense and to their friends. I am not going to fault anybody for that. The question is whether the families of two eight- and nine-year-olds got the same attention from the district that its administrators' reputations did. These excerpts cannot show everything officials did for the children. They do show a lot of attention to how the administrators would look. The Board should find out whether notifying parents, getting outside help for the children, and fixing the reporting failure got the same urgency.

Confusion About Reporting

On the morning of May 26, Burkett described to Faciane a leadership meeting that had just ended. In her telling, Jabbia said police had informed him two administrators would face felony charges, that "he wants to protect us at all costs," and that child-on-child conduct "is an area … that we are not necessarily reporting." An attorney then walked through the statute and "pointed out where it is confusing/broad/vague." She described the room as worried and confused. That is her account, not a recording, and Jabbia's words are secondhand. Either way, for a school official to admit in any forum that "child-on-child conduct" is an area that's not being reported is just beyond the pale.

It supports what I said in my last article: staff need clear guidance. But it does not blur the line between ordinary contact and suspected abuse. The District Attorney drew that line plainly, and so did the SRO. In an unrelated November 2025 matter, SRO Janel Walters texted Barth that a deputy's welfare check did not change the fact that "the teacher or whoever he told about the abuse still needs to file a report with dcfs." The rule was not a mystery at Lyon. It was being stated in writing, by the person the administrators were supposed to be calling.

Still on the Payroll

Another concern is who is paying for all of this. Why are these two administrators still receiving a paycheck from taxpayers and are taxpayers footing some or all of their legal bills? Faciane's messages say she and Barth had "the school board [attorney] and a different one." Other exchanges discuss administrative leave, resignation, and an agreement that would keep the reason for resignation private and shield against future litigation. The screenshots do not show who paid for counsel or whether any agreement was signed, and Faciane herself wrote that she was confused about what resigning would accomplish.

Here is what we do know. On September 2, both women stood in court and admitted they did not comply with the mandatory reporting law, after being trained on it, in cases the District Attorney said involved sexual conduct between eight- and nine-year-olds on a school campus. As of the district's last public statement, reported September 4, both are still employed by the school system, on paid administrative leave. If that has changed, the district has not bothered to tell anyone. In my world, when an employee admits in open court to breaking a law that exists to protect children, the proposed removal is on my desk before the ink is dry. Here, the taxpayers have been paying two salaries since May 27 to people who are not allowed on a campus, and there are questions as to whether we are also paying for their representation.

Why are they still on the payroll? What personnel action is pending, if any, and what is the Board waiting for? What has this cost so far? Did the district pay for their lawyers? And did that May "agreement" ever get signed, and who approved it? Those are questions for a public meeting, not a spokesperson. Those are the questions a school board representative should be asking.

Why This Is a Safety Issue

I keep saying school safety is not only about doors, cameras, and resource officers. Those things are necessary and I support all of them. But every safety system in a school runs on one thing: an adult sees something and says something.

Look at what actually worked at Lyon. A teacher reported two children missing from class. A para told a counselor what a child said. A mental health provider said it had to be reported. The SRO pulled the footage. Every one of those people is an employee. The people who failed were the administrators who sat on it and the central office that backed them up. The police report says the SRO told detectives administration was already hiding incidents from her: a knife, ammunition, a student slapping a teacher's child.

When employees learn that reporting gets you labeled "negative" and gets your name sent to the superintendent, the cameras and the SRO become decoration, because nobody tells the SRO anything. A district where the staff is afraid is a district where the next incident gets handled "internally" too. That is not a personnel problem. That is the safety problem. It is the one I am running on.

What the Board Should Do

I said in my earlier article that the new leadership and support at Lyon are welcome, and I still think so. That does not answer any of the questions above.

The elected Board is the only body that can. These records do not show what any individual Board member knew or when, and an independent review should establish that. The Board should commission one from people who do not report to the officials being examined, and publish a timeline with the children's identities protected.

Beyond that, the Board should put the superintendent at the microphone and ask him what he did with those names, which complaints were actually filed after that May text, against whom, and what came of them. It should send every Lyon employee who spoke with Covington Police written notice that their cooperation is protected and will not be used against them. It should put in writing that an employee who reports suspected abuse or cooperates with law enforcement will not be disciplined for it, and name someone outside the building chain of command that a teacher, para, bus driver, or cafeteria worker can call. And it should state, on the record, the employment status of both administrators, what action is pending, what it has cost, and whether any agreement exists.

The bottom line is this. Teachers and support staff told me they were afraid to speak up. I now have their reason in writing. A school system that goes looking for the name of the teacher who talked to the police, while keeping two administrators who admitted to not reporting child abuse on the payroll, has its priorities exactly backwards. The Board can fix that. It should start at its next meeting.

If I am elected to the District 7 seat, I intend to serve as a direct and confidential resource for teachers and staff to discuss these concerns (to the extent that confidentiality can be maintained). I am dedicated to thoroughly investigating any issues that are raised, particularly those involving allegations of illegal activities and retaliation against employees who act with integrity.

Screenshots/records source: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1Lm52taMfA/

Latest on What Happened at E.E. Lyon Elementary Deeply Disturbing

Mon, 14 Sep 2026 06:28:21 GMT

New Information Only Raises More Questions

The latest information coming out about what happened at E.E. Lyon Elementary in Covington is deeply disturbing.

For anyone who hasn’t been following this case, former Lyon Principal Lauryn Faciane and Assistant Principal Tonya Barth were arrested in May for failing to comply with Louisiana’s mandatory child-abuse reporting laws. Both have since pleaded guilty. We later learned that two of the incidents involved serious sexual conduct between children as young as 8 and 9 years old.

Now, according to WDSU, a newly released Covington Police report is providing even more troubling details about what happened—and about opportunities that may have been missed to protect these children.

According to the police report, had the first incident involving a particular student been properly reported and addressed, a later incident involving that same student might have been prevented.

That makes this even more infuriating. Mandatory reporting isn’t bureaucratic paperwork. It exists to protect children and help prevent something from happening again. When adults entrusted with that responsibility fail to act, the consequences can extend far beyond the first incident.

Equally troubling is that parents were not always told what had happened to their own children.

As a parent, if my child suffers abuse, an attack, or any other serious incident while under the care of a school—whether involving another student or an adult—I expect to be told. Period.

So parents deserve an answer to a very basic question: Why would school administrators choose not to tell parents something this serious had happened to their child?

Was this simply catastrophic judgment at one school? Or has the desire to protect the image or “brand” of our school system become so important that bad news gets minimized rather than confronted openly? Are we ever sacrificing transparency—and potentially safety—to maintain a rosier public image?

I don’t know the answer. But after what we’ve learned, parents and the public have every right to ask.

I also want to recognize something important. I attended last night’s School Board meeting and heard a Lyon teacher speak emotionally about how the staff finally feels heard and thanked the Board and administration for the support they are now receiving. That matters. Steps have been taken to change the leadership and provide additional support at Lyon, and it appears those efforts are making a positive difference. That deserves to be acknowledged.

But another concern raised during public comments deserves attention as well. Employees and members of the public expressed concern that the pendulum may now be swinging too far in the opposite direction—that ordinary, innocent interactions with/between students, even something as simple as a hug or high five, are allegedly creating uncertainty about mandatory reporting because employees don’t believe they are receiving clear and consistent guidance.

That isn’t a solution either.

We cannot respond to serious failures by creating a climate where good teachers and employees are afraid that normal, appropriate human interaction with a child or between children could be treated as misconduct. We shouldn’t punish thousands of employees and students for the failures of a few.

What is needed is clear, consistent guidance and training: what must be reported, to whom, when, and what constitutes appropriate interaction with students. Protecting children and treating good employees fairly are not competing objectives. A well-run school system should be able to do both.

This is exactly why school safety is my number one priority. Safety isn’t just locked doors, cameras and resource officers. It means acting immediately when something serious happens, following the law, notifying parents, communicating honestly, supporting employees with clear expectations, and putting children first.

I’m also troubled by how much of this story has emerged piece by piece. Every new disclosure seems to reveal something more serious. What else don’t we know?

We need a full accounting of what happened, who knew what and when, why required reports weren’t made, why parents weren’t notified, and what changes are being made throughout the system.

Our parents deserve answers. Our employees deserve clear guidance and support. Taxpayers deserve accountability. And above all, our children deserve to be safe.

Link to WDSU article: Northshore principals failure to report abuse: New details - WDSU

Federation Endorses Ben Banchs for District 7: Putting Experience to Work for Our Schools

Mon, 07 Sep 2026 18:18:41 GMT

Ben Banchs brings extensive collective bargaining and labor relations experience to the School Board race.

Federation Endorses Ben Banchs for District 7: Putting Experience to Work for Our Schools

I'm honored to have the endorsement of the St. Tammany Federation of Teachers and School Employees in my race for District 7 on the St. Tammany Parish School Board. These are the people who teach our kids, drive the buses, run the cafeterias, and keep the buildings working. Their support means everything to me.

An endorsement is a responsibility. It means showing up, doing the homework, asking the questions nobody else is asking, and working with the people who are on the front-lines everyday to fix what needs fixing.

Here's how that meshes with my top-three priorities.

1. Safe schools for students and staff. Kids can't learn if they don't feel safe, and employees can't do their jobs if they don't feel safe either. That means secure buildings, facilities that are kept up, emergency plans everyone understands, and real backup when there's a discipline problem on campus. The people who work in our schools every day know first-hand the challenges and concerns so that's where I plan to start - we need to listen to them not just to identify problem area, but also to hear what their proposed solutions are.

2. Fiscal responsibility and transparency. When the Board makes a promise, it needs to know how it's going to pay for it, not just this year but next year, the year after, and five and ten years down the road. I plan to scrutinize every budget line item, ask where the money is coming from, and push for the district to explain its finances in plain English so a regular taxpayer can follow it without an accounting degree. A sound budget is what pays for classroom supplies and better pay and keeps the district's word to its employees and taxpayers.

3. Competitive pay for teachers and school staff. Our schools run on people: teachers, paraprofessionals, bus drivers, custodians, cafeteria workers, and the rest of the support staff. Good people are hard to hire and easy to lose, and we lose too many to neighboring parishes. I'll push for a real look at what we pay and work toward raises the district can actually sustain. Suffice it to say, there are some that believe pay is competitive. I certainly don't, and I want to put pay and benefits front and center.

Pay is only part of it. Benefits people can afford, a workload that's reasonable, clear policies and expectations, fair treatment, and due process matter just as much. When an employee raises a concern, they deserve a straight answer, and they deserve to know that the agreements the district signed will be honored.

I've spent years at the bargaining table, and I've learned that good labor relations come down to two things: being prepared and talking to each other. When both sides understand the contract and problems get dealt with early instead of festering, everyone can get back to the actual work. I said that publicly when the Board moved to cancel the employees' collective bargaining agreement, and I'll say it again as a Board member, to the other members, to district leadership, and to the people who represent our employees.

I want to thank the Federation for its support. I'm running to represent every family and taxpayer in District 7, and supporting collective bargaining is one of the primary ways I intend to do that.

This article is also on my Facebook page. Let me know what you think.

The Money Behind One Student

Wed, 26 Aug 2026 02:36:41 GMT

Enrollment is more than a number in a budget. It is one of the clearest measures of whether families believe in their school system.

The Money Behind One Student—and Why Enrollment Matters

St. Tammany Parish Public Schools expects to spend about $502.4 million from its General Fund in the 2026–27 fiscal year. With approximately 35,000 students, that works out to about $14,400 in operating costs per student. That figure covers the everyday work of operating the school system—teachers, support staff, transportation, security, special education and other essential services. It does not include construction and debt costs.

Where does that money come from?

On average, approximately $5,200 per student comes from the state through Louisiana’s Minimum Foundation Program. The remaining $9,200 is overwhelmingly loca l, supported mainly by parish property taxes and sales taxes. The distinction matters because the money does not move the same way every time a student leaves.

When a student moves away or enrolls in a private school or homeschool, the district generally loses the state share connected to that student. Most local tax revenue remains because property and sales taxes do not ordinarily follow individual students.

When a student enrolls in a state-authorized charter school, however, both state and local per-student funding can follow. That creates a substantially larger effect on the district’s budget.

Does a student's departure reduce operating costs?

No. Many school-system expenses do not disappear when enrollment declines. Buildings still have to be maintained. Buses still have to run. Schools still need teachers, counselors, support personnel and security. Losing students can therefore mean less revenue available to support many of the same fixed responsibilities. That is why retaining students is so important—and why we should also be working to increase enrollment.

What's the solution?

Growing enrollment can strengthen state funding, make better use of existing schools and spread major operating costs across more students. But enrollment will not grow simply because we want it to. Families must have confidence that their children are safe, supported and receiving an excellent education.That means listening honestly to families who leave, supporting effective teachers and staff, protecting strong academic and extracurricular programs, and making our public schools places families actively choose.

Enrollment is more than a number in a budget. It is one of the clearest measures of whether families believe in their school system.

The most practical long-term budget strategy is straightforward: build a district families want to stay in—and one that new families want to join.

This post is on my Facebook page so let me know what you think.

Did You Know? 46% of St. Tammany’s Property Tax Revenue Goes to Our Public Schools

Sat, 22 Aug 2026 16:50:04 GMT

That makes public education the largest single recipient of property-tax revenue in the parish — and taxpayers deserve to know how that money is being used

Did You Know?

46% of St. Tammany’s Property Tax Revenue Goes to Our Public Schools

That makes public education the largest single recipient of property-tax revenue in the parish — and taxpayers deserve to know how that money is being used.

When we talk about public education, we usually talk about students, teachers, test scores, school safety and facilities. But there is another part of the conversation that every St. Tammany Parish taxpayer has a stake in: the money. According to the St. Tammany Parish Assessor, property taxes across our parish in 2025 totaled approximately $399.2 million. Of that amount, approximately $184.3 million — 46.2% — went to our public schools. Put another way, for every dollar of property-tax revenue across St. Tammany Parish, approximately 46 cents goes to public education. That makes education, by far, the largest single recipient of property-tax revenue in the parish.

For some perspective, the Assessor's figures consistently show just how large that investment is. In 2024, fire protection collectively received nearly 20 cents of every property-tax dollar , while law enforcement received less than 8 cents . Public schools received more property-tax revenue than fire protection and law enforcement combined . The schools' share also increased in 2025. In 2024, public schools received about 44% of parishwide property-tax revenue. In 2025, that share increased to 46.2% , even as total parishwide property-tax revenue declined.

That's not an argument that we're spending too much on education. Strong public schools are one of the most important investments a community can make. But when nearly half of our property-tax revenue supports one public institution, taxpayers have every right to understand where that money goes, how it is being spent, and what results we're getting from that investment.

Transparency Matters

The School Board oversees hundreds of millions of dollars each year. Some of that money is restricted for specific purposes, some pays debt, and some supports the day-to-day operation of our schools. Property taxes are only part of the picture: the district also receives substantial revenue from local sales taxes and from the state and federal governments.

It's a complicated financial picture — but complexity shouldn't be an excuse for taxpayers not understanding it. I believe one of the responsibilities of a School Board member is to help make that information understandable and accessible to the people we represent. Residents shouldn't have to be accountants to understand their school system's finances.

It's About Priorities

The budget ultimately comes down to choices about where limited resources are spent.

Mine are straightforward:

1. SAFETY — Students, teachers and staff deserve schools where they can learn and work safely.

2. TRANSPARENCY — Taxpayers deserve open, understandable accounting of how their money is collected, spent and measured.

3. COMPENSATION — We need competitive compensation that allows St. Tammany to attract and retain excellent teachers and support employees.

Those priorities are connected. Every dollar we can save through better management, responsible staffing, competitive purchasing or greater efficiency is a dollar that can potentially be directed toward the things that matter most. At the same time, permanent commitments like employee raises require sustainable, recurring funding. Fiscal responsibility means looking beyond next year's budget and making sure the decisions we make today remain affordable tomorrow.

My Commitment

With approximately 46% of parish property-tax revenue going to public education , the School Board has an enormous responsibility — both to our students and employees and to the taxpayers who fund our schools.

If I have the opportunity to serve District 7, my commitment is simple: be present, attend the meetings, listen to the public and the administration, ask questions, study the numbers, and make decisions based on facts.

That also means helping residents better understand where their tax dollars are going and why decisions are being made. Transparency shouldn't begin and end with making financial documents available online. It should mean making the information understandable and giving the public an opportunity to be heard. Our schools belong to this community, and the taxpayers who support them deserve a School Board that is engaged, informed and accountable.

That is the approach I intend to bring to the School Board.

This post is on my Facebook page so let me know what you think.

Source: St. Tammany Parish Assessor, 2025 Revenue by Agency and 2024 Quadrennial Report.

Figures are parishwide estimates published by the Assessor; an individual property owner's breakdown varies by municipality and taxing district.

A First Look at the Proposed School System Budget

Fri, 21 Aug 2026 20:57:18 GMT

Our Budget Should Reflect Our Priorities

A First Look at the Proposed School System Budget

Last night, I attended the School Board meeting and listened closely to the Board and Superintendent’s presentation on the proposed 2026–27 budget. I also listened to two members of the public who offered comments, including the St. Tammany Federation President, Brant Osborn. Both gentlemen raised thoughtful points, and Board and administration representatives—including CFO Terri Prevost—provided detailed responses and useful context.

Since then, I’ve spent additional time reviewing the proposed budget documents. I encourage residents to review them as well. They are available through the STPPS Finance Department , including the FY 2026–27 Budget Message and FY 2026–27 General Fund Budget , along with the district’s special revenue, capital project, and debt service fund budgets.

The Good News

The district continues to maintain substantial reserves and a strong financial position. It has also shown that savings are possible.

Through attrition and reviewing vacant positions, the administration identified approximately $3.2 million in recurring personnel savings , which is being used to help fund the new employee pay increase. School Food Services has also significantly improved its financial position while continuing to provide free meals to students.

Those are exactly the kinds of efficiencies I want us to continue pursuing.

Areas of Concern

The General Fund is facing a roughly $24.8 million reduction in state Minimum Foundation Program (MFP) funding . The MFP is the primary formula Louisiana uses to fund public schools and determines a significant portion of the state funding each school system receives. Because much of that funding is tied to student enrollment, losing students can also mean losing state dollars.

For St. Tammany, the projected reduction is being driven by several factors, including declining enrollment, students moving to a new charter school, and changes in how the state is funding employee stipends.

To balance the proposed budget, the district plans to use approximately $24.8 million in one-time transfers from other funds .

That may get us through this budget year, but it does not by itself solve the problem for the following year.

As a Board member, one of my first questions would be simple:

What is our long-term plan if that revenue does not return?

I do not believe the answer should automatically be higher taxes, nor do I believe responsible budgeting means indiscriminately cutting programs or employees. We should continue examining vacancies and staffing as enrollment changes, administrative and contracted expenses, rising health-care costs, facilities and operating expenses, and successful cost-saving efforts elsewhere in the system to determine what can be replicated.

Our Budget Should Reflect Our Priorities

For me, those priorities include safe and secure schools, transparency and accountability in how public money is spent, and competitive pay for the teachers and staff who make our schools work every day.

Permanent raises require permanent funding. I will not promise employees money that isn’t sustainable. But I do believe we should make competitive compensation a priority and aggressively search for recurring savings that can be redirected toward our people.

The School Board oversees hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars. If elected, I commit to attend all meetings, listen to the public and the administration, ask questions, study the numbers, and make decisions based on facts.

That is the approach I intend to bring to the School Board.

This post is on my Facebook page so let me know what you think.

Unfortunate Incident Raises Transparency Concerns

Fri, 21 Aug 2026 20:38:53 GMT

Safe schools, support for our teachers and employees, and transparency with parents all go hand in hand

Unfortunate Incident Raises Transparency Concerns

Friday’s incident at Lakeshore High School was unfortunate. Thankfully, no one appears to have been seriously injured. Since Lakeshore is one of the schools within District 7, I wanted to weigh in.

The incident reinforces why school safety is my number one priority. The fact that incidents like these are rare is a good thing. But they also serve to remind us that our students deserve a safe place to learn, and our teachers and employees deserve a safe place to work. When teachers and an SRO are struck while stepping in to protect students, we need to make sure employees know they will be supported and their rights protected when they reasonably intervene in a dangerous situation.

I also have questions about transparency. WDSU has identified Lakeshore High School as the campus where the altercation took place. However, that information has not been officially been released by the School System, and the Sheriff’s Office has referred only to an “area high school.” I fully support protecting the identity of the minor involved, but if there is a legal or safety reason for withholding the school’s name, parents and the public deserve an explanation.

Safe schools, support for our teachers and employees, and transparency with parents all go hand in hand.

To see the original WDSU new report click here .

To see my Facebook post and comment go to: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1FBeGLijsj/ .

Why I Decided to Run

Fri, 21 Aug 2026 20:28:25 GMT

When "I should be involved" became "I need to be involved"

Government gets a lot of attention at the national level, but the decisions that often affect us most are made right here at home. I've always believed that if you care about your community, you should be willing to get involved. That's a big part of why I'm running for the School Board.

People sometimes ask when I decided I wanted to run. If I had to point to one moment when "I should be involved" became "I need to be involved," it was probably this meeting that took place in July 2024, when the School Board was toying with the idea of getting rid of collective bargaining.

I initially just wanted to express my support for the collective bargaining process and the teacher and employee union, and I did. But as the meeting went on and even after the board voted to continue honoring collective bargaining, it was clear that the motivation or justification for getting rid of collective bargaining in the first place was not supported by facts. Rather, it was nothing more than mere personal opinion on the part of some school board members. In other words, their vote was a reflection of their personal preferences and not necessarily the right thing to do for students, teachers and school staff, or taxpayers.

So here I am...

You can check out the Facebook post here to let me know what you think:

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1bhzRbzUzM/