If you are in immediate danger, call 911. Crisis support any time: 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, call or text 988. National Sexual Assault Hotline: 1-800-656-4673.
LSMSA Survivor Tip LineConfidential. Attorney operated. Information goes to investigators. You decide what happens next.
The record, as it exists in public documents

Forty three years, six sworn complaints, one federal judgment, thirty three notifications, and an arrest.

Everything on this page is drawn from sworn testimony, a federal court ruling, public statutes, the school's own records produced in litigation, published newspaper notices, correspondence sent by this office to the school and to state and federal authorities, and the Louisiana State Police announcement. Where something is an allegation rather than a finding, this page says so.

A note on fact and allegation

Anthony T. "Thorn" Lacaze was arrested on September 9, 2026 on the charges announced by the Louisiana State Police, described on the Criminal Investigation page. He is presumed innocent of every charge unless and until proven guilty. What is established, because the school's own leaders swore to it and a federal court found it, is set out below with its source. What survivors have reported to this office, but which no court has yet tested, is described as a report.

The school

The Louisiana School for Math, Science and the Arts was created by the Legislature in 1981 and opened to students in 1983: a state operated residential high school in Natchitoches, ranked among the best public high schools in the nation, whose students live on campus, away from their parents, in the school's custody. By statute the school is "independent of the control of the state superintendent and of all local and state education boards except its board of directors." That independence is why, for forty three years, there has been nowhere outside the building for a student's report to go.

Timeline

  • 1983The school opens. Residential custody of the state's most gifted teenagers begins under a board answerable only to itself.
  • November 2012The first documented report about Lacaze reaches the director's office. The school's own records, produced in litigation, include a memorandum to the then Executive Director documenting a report concerning Lacaze's physical conduct toward a student. A complainant would later write that she was "incredibly disappointed to learn this was allowed to continue for eight years."
  • 2016 to 2018The reported abuse period. Survivors have reported to this office that Lacaze, then Senior Director for External Affairs, engaged in sexual acts with minor students, exchanged things of value, including pills, for those acts, and photographed and recorded them. These are reports. What is sworn is that six students complained to the school, and that all but one were minors. The State Police complaint of August 2026, as announced, concerns "the exchange of goods for child sexual abuse material and sexual favors by juveniles."
  • 2020Complaints, and a resignation that ends the investigation. In 2020, written student complaints reached the school's Title IX office, including one concerning the Title IX Coordinator himself. A staff member's contemporaneous statement records that the school was "waiting to learn from our lawyers if we needed to report the situation to the police." Lacaze was permitted to resign while the investigation was open. Under oath: "He quit, so the process stopped." No finding was made; the parish school system that employed him next was not warned.
  • 2021A professor sues. Dr. Justin Barker, a faculty member, sued the school in federal court for sexual harassment and retaliation. Her case is the reason the record below exists.
  • December 14 and 15, 2022The depositions. The school's leadership testified under oath: six complaints about Lacaze, all but one from minors. The Executive Director testified he had submitted the matter to the Sheriff and the District Attorney; what the agencies' own records show is set out in the September 2026 entries below. During those depositions, he exchanged text messages with other witnesses and deleted them the same day.
  • March 8, 2024The federal judgment. A United States Magistrate Judge, in a ruling adopted as the judgment of the District Court, found that the Executive Director "instructed the LSMSA employees how they were to testify," that they testified accordingly, that he deleted the messages with intent to conceal them, and that the school's human resources officer shredded her investigation notes while a federal discrimination charge was pending.
  • 2024Settlement without silence. Dr. Barker refused any nondisclosure agreement and directed that the record be released.
  • November 22 and 25, 2024The first demand, and the newspaper notice. This office sent a written evidence preservation demand naming Lacaze to the Board Chair and others, with the federal ruling attached, and published the demand as a paid notice in the Natchitoches Parish Journal, inviting survivors to come forward.
  • December 2, 2024The directive. Ten days later the Executive Director instructed every employee in writing that they had "NO obligation whatsoever" to communicate with counsel for survivors. It has never been rescinded.
  • December 2024 through July 2026Thirty three notifications to eleven authorities. The Board, the Legislative Auditor, the State Inspector General, the Board of Ethics, the Department of Education, the Board of Regents, four legislative offices, the federal Office for Civil Rights, the federal Education Inspector General, the parish school board, and the FBI and State Police. The Inspector General answered on November 10, 2025 that it has "no authority to investigate the LSMSA or its employees." The Department of Education identified approximately 3,500 responsive emails and, on April 1, 2026, produced twenty eight email files.
  • December 20, 2025Current students report. Written complaints from at least four currently enrolled students concerning a serving dean's conduct in the residential halls were delivered to thirty four recipients, including the entire Board.
  • July 1, 2026The Executive Director retires, with full benefits and honors, no disciplinary finding of record, and a scheduled return as debate coach.
  • July 21, 2026Criminal referrals. This office referred the matter to the FBI and the Louisiana State Police, with a sworn attorney affidavit and an exhibit binder prepared for the United States Attorney.
  • August 2026The State Police open an investigation on a complaint regarding the exchange of goods for child sexual abuse material and sexual favors by juveniles.
  • September 9, 2026Arrest. Lacaze is arrested by the State Police Special Victims Unit and booked into the Natchitoches Parish Detention Center on eight counts. The investigation "remains active and ongoing." A renewed preservation demand goes to every member of the Board the same day.
  • September 10, 2026The Sheriff's first answer. Asked under the Public Records Law for any complaint or report concerning Thorn Lacaze from 2005 to the present, the Natchitoches Parish Sheriff's Office certifies in writing that it is "unable to locate any records" for the items requested. Requests go the same day to the District Attorney, the State Police, the City of Natchitoches, the University Police, and others.
  • September 14, 2026The Board meets. On an agenda with no item concerning the arrest, the Board adds one near the end of the meeting and tells the public it handled the 2020 reports properly. Asked whether any policy changed as a result, a member answers, "No." Watch the meeting.
  • September 15, 2026The school's statement, and the District Attorney's answer. The school issues a statement over the Executive Director's signature. The same day the District Attorney produces a single email from the former Executive Director, dated September 15, 2020 and sent to the District Attorney's personal email account, and a September 22, 2020 letter from the District Attorney to the Sheriff stating that six files were hand delivered. The City of Natchitoches later certifies that it holds no responsive records; the State Police decline to produce theirs.
  • September 21, 2026The Sheriff supplements. Shown the District Attorney's 2020 letter, the Sheriff's Office writes that a 2020 meeting took place and a file was produced, and that there is no written record of either. The District Attorney's office certifies that the 2020 email was one page with no attachment. No record produced by any agency shows a report to the Department of Children and Family Services, or any report or file logged by the District Attorney, the Sheriff, or the State Police, as the mandatory reporting law requires.
  • October 16, 2026The recording is released. In response to a September 15 public records request, the school releases its recording and written transcription of the September 14 Board meeting. Both are posted here.
  • December 7, 2026The Board meets again. Counsel for the Board has agreed in writing to place on the agenda an item to rescind the September 14 action, with public comment invited before the vote.
  • June 14, 2027The civil window closes. See The Law.

Why the school's independence matters to you

Every road for a complaint at this school leads back to its own Board. The state's Inspector General cannot investigate it and has said so in writing. The Ethics Board declined. The Legislative Auditor audits money. The Department of Education does not supervise it. The Board, twenty four seats held by legislators, gubernatorial appointees, and state education officials, was told in writing, repeatedly, with delivery confirmed. That structure is why survivors who reported saw nothing happen, why the first arrest came only after thirteen months of outside referrals, and why the courts, rather than the school, are where accountability now runs. Legislation to place this school and the state's other special schools under outside supervision has been drafted and will be proposed.