Tell BESE to Hold Lycée Accountable | See the Lycée Receipts | Read the Latest Article About Lycée
Schools should be focused on supporting their students by retaining qualified teachers in classrooms, keeping school buildings safe, and listening to families when they raise issues.
They shouldn’t be spending their time and resources fighting educators, parents, public records requests, or oversight. But that’s exactly what Lycée Français International de la Louisiane is doing.
Right now, our union, the United Teachers of New Orleans, is fighting for basic transparency from a school whose list of scandals grows by the day. We requested public financial records from Lycée about its spending and finances. Months later, we still haven’t received them. So we sued.
That’s a real trend with Lycée, even as it looks to expand with a new campus in Lafayette.
We’re calling on the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to take action because it really should be this simple: Schools that don’t follow the law shouldn’t be allowed to expand into other communities in Louisiana.
The numbers don't lie
From October 2021 to February 2026, Lycée lost 367 students, dropping from 1,078 to 711, in under five years. Lycée is the only A-rated school in New Orleans that has seen this kind of sharp enrollment decline.
And it's only going to get worse — according to Lycée itself. The school's preliminary budget projects only 667 students enrolled for this school year. That's an anticipated decline of another 44 students, bringing the total lost since 2021 to 411.
What is Lycée hiding?
This latest fight over public records is part of a larger pattern at Lycée:
- Teachers who organized have been fired or pushed out.
- Parents who asked questions have faced retaliation – including cease and desist letters, threats to their employment and bans from the school.
- Lycée has sued its French accreditation agency six times amid disputes over information and oversight.
- Auditors have identified serious weaknesses in financial controls.
- And now, UTNO’s request for public financial records has been ignored for months.
Teachers and families deserve answers.
It’s time for transparency. It’s time for accountability. It’s time for an end to Lycée’s games. We need to tell BESE that charter schools that are not following the law should not be allowed to expand.
Could your charter school be the next Lycée?
Lycée is a particularly bad example. But do you know what’s happening at your charter school?
Have you ever:
- Asked for public information and not gotten it?
- Been pushed out or faced consequences for speaking up?
- Had trouble attending or participating in a public board meeting?
- Wondered how much your school is spending on lawyers and lawsuits?
- Felt like major decisions were being made without teachers and families at the table?
These are warning signs worth paying attention to, as we’ve seen at Lycée. UTNO would like to hear from educators and parents if they're seeing this kind of behavior at their schools.
Fighting for the schools our students deserve
We’re the United Teachers of New Orleans, a union of New Orleans educators working for strong schools where educators have a voice, families are heard, and public resources go toward giving students what they need to thrive – not endless lawsuits hurled at anyone who dares to hold a school accountable.
Charter schools use public dollars. The public deserves to know how those dollars are being spent.
Lycée can do better. And communities across New Orleans deserve better. If you work at a school in Orleans Parish and you agree, join UTNO as a member today.