NEW ORLEANS (LA)
Times-Picayune [New Orleans LA]
September 22, 2026
By Jim Derry
Facing concerned parents and calls for reform, St. Tammany Parish School Board members plan to launch a districtwide investigation into how schools and administrators are complying with rules for reporting child abuse after two Lyon Elementary administrators pleaded guilty for failing to do so.
During a seven-hour special meeting Monday evening at the CJ Schoen Administrative Complex in Covington, the board said it will vote next month to hire a third-party firm to probe all 55 schools and the district’s central office for “compliance with administrative processes, communications and mandatory reporting.”
The school system confirmed Monday that Lauryn Faciane, 50, the former principal of Lyon, and Tonya Barth, 55, who previously served as the school’s assistant principal, are no longer employed by the district.
Both were arrested in May and later pleaded guilty to charges of failure to report abuse of a child. Each had been on administrative leave and were being paid, but that period ended late last week.
The incident has sparked an outcry among some parents concerned about child safety and how schools are prepared to address it. District Attorney Collin Sims said in a statement earlier this month the charges for Faciane and Barth stemmed from violations of Louisiana’s mandatory reporting laws, and in this case the alleged incidents not reported included “sexual conduct that occurred on campus between students 8-9 years old.” Sims said neither a school resource officer nor any law enforcement were notified of any incident.
The Monday meeting was originally scheduled to open with an executive session and then a period of public comments. But board members reversed the order and allowed 25 speakers to go first.
One by one, concerned citizens, parents and one student came to the podium to air their concerns, largely over the mandatory reporting issue.
Kristin Bourg, who had an 8-year-old nonverbal, autistic student at Lyon but pulled him out before this school year, said she is concerned about how the school operates.
“My son started Lyon happy, but today he cannot safely return. He has nightmares about school, he regressed significantly, and his behavior tells us something is seriously wrong,” Bourg said. She said she reported the situation to the school and district but was ignored “for months.” Later, she said she was told by the school system to “put him on the bus and see what happens.”
Others had similar stories throughout the 80-minute speaking period that included school board representative Gia Baker, who came around from her chair at the dais.
Coming to tears during her allotted three minutes of speaking time, she said that there were a number of people to blame for the alleged incident at Lyon.
“A para educator at (at Lyon) failed these two children. Two teachers failed these children. A guidance counselor failed these children. The assistant principal failed these children. The principal failed these children. The (school resource officer) failed these children,” Baker said. “It appears to me from the bottom up everyone shifted their burden to report to the next person.”
Justin Bleker, who was raped at Abney Elementary School in 2007 by a then-janitor at the school, spoke out against the school system as he and his mother, Rebecca Bleker Hickman, have at multiple previous meetings.
“The man who raped me was hired by (now-retired superintendent) Pete Jabbia, and Pete Jabbia was over HR and ignored the background check,” Bleker said. “His own system, this system failed.”
Later, when they went behind closed doors to discuss what actions they may take, board members spent more than five hours debating what to do next.
“We have asked the superintendent (Frank Jabbia) a lot of very necessary questions, hard questions,” Board President Amanda Reed Martin said. “And we have decided to initiate an investigation done by an independent firm that has expertise in education to evaluate every single school site, including central office.”
One board member, Michelle Hirstius, said that wasn’t enough, and raised the prospect of putting Jabbia on paid leave during a probe. Jabbia did not speak publicly at the meeting, and the school system’s communications director, Meredith Mendez, said he had no comment Tuesday morning.
Board member Adaline Rutherford, who represents the district that Lyon sits in, said early Tuesday morning after executive session had ended that the new administration at the school, Principal Ben Strohl and Assistant Principal Kaci Puglia are doing “an amazing job.”
“They are working hard to make sure our school is going to be strong again,” she said. “They are doing their best. I see it. I am there almost everyday.”
Jim Derry covers St. Tammany Parish, and has been part of The Times-Picayune staff for much of the past 36 years. Jim can be reached via email at jderry@theadvocate.com.