If you were harmed at the Louisiana School for Math, Science and the Arts, by anyone, at any time in its forty three years, you are not alone, you are believed, and it is not too late.

Two tracks, one door

What is already established, in the school's own words

The facts below are not allegations by this office. They come from sworn testimony by the school's own leadership in a federal case, and from a federal court's ruling. The full record is on The Barker CaseThe Record page.

Asked under oath whether underage students were involved in the Title IX complaints against Thorn Lacaze, the school's Executive Director answered: "Yes, all of them. All but one." Asked how many students had complained: "Six."Deposition of the LSMSA Executive Director, December 15, 2022, Barker v. LSMSA, U.S. District Court, Western District of Louisiana

Asked how the investigation of those complaints concluded, the school's Title IX Coordinator testified: "He quit, so the process stopped."Deposition of the LSMSA Title IX Coordinator, December 14, 2022

Six students reported him. The school's leadership swore to that number nearly four years before his arrest, in a case that was not even about him. How his name surfaced in the Barker case, and what happened next, is told here. The investigation ended when he resigned, with no finding, and he went on to work with students elsewhere. On March 8, 2024, a United States Magistrate Judge found, in a ruling adopted as the judgment of the court, that the school's Executive Director had instructed employees how to testify and had deleted his messages with them during the depositions, and that investigation records were shredded. No one at the school was disciplined for any of it. The State Police complaint that produced the September 9, 2026 arrest came in August 2026, thirteen months after this office began referring the matter to law enforcement.

What happens when you reach out

• An attorney reads it personally. No intake staff, no call center.
• Investigators receive it. Information is provided to the Louisiana State Police Special Victims Unit and, where federal offenses are implicated, to the FBI. You decide whether it goes with your name, with a first name, or anonymously. Anonymous information still corroborates.
• Your civil claim is yours. Nothing is filed, and your identity is disclosed to no one outside law enforcement, without your written consent. You may pursue a civil claim against Lacaze or against the enablers, cooperate with the criminal case, do both, or do neither.
• You may bring support. A parent, a partner, a therapist, an advocate, a friend.
• There is no fee to talk, and no fee at all unless there is a recovery.
• Current students: please involve a parent or a trusted adult outside the school first; we will ask to speak with a parent before anything goes further.

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