J.W. Faulk Elementary Gets New Interim Principal as LPSS Promotes Messa to Risk Management

LAFAYETTE, La. — Parents dropping their kids off at J.W. Faulk Elementary this year are seeing a new face in the principal’s office, and it’s happening because the old one earned a promotion.

Lafayette Parish School System announced Friday that Alysia Messa, who has led J.W. Faulk for the past two years, is stepping into a new district-wide position as Director of Risk Management. Her replacement, Lance Abshire, steps in as interim principal after serving as assistant principal at Dr. Raphael A. Baranco Elementary.

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What J.W. Faulk Families Need to Know

Messa arrived at J.W. Faulk at the start of the 2024-25 school year, right as the campus joined LPSS’s Accelerating Campus Excellence, or ACE, Initiative, a turnaround model built around bringing in top-tier certified teachers and administrators, extending the school day, and layering in mental health and family support resources. It’s an aggressive approach, and by the district’s own account, it worked at J.W. Faulk. Under Messa, the school posted its first “C” letter grade in its history, a real jump for a campus that had spent years near the bottom of the district’s performance rankings.

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That track record is likely part of why LPSS wanted her running risk management for the whole system now. The department handles everything from workers’ compensation claims and accident reporting to liability coverage, property and casualty insurance, and workplace safety across every LPSS campus. It’s not a flashy title, but it’s one of the district’s more consequential behind-the-scenes jobs, and it puts a proven turnaround administrator in charge of protecting the system’s people and property system-wide.

Messa brings 26 years of instructional and administrative experience in LPSS to the new post.

Meet J.W. Faulk’s New Interim Principal

Stepping into Messa’s old office is Lance Abshire, an Acadiana High School graduate who has spent his career on the ACE side of the district. Before moving into administration, Abshire served as Academic and Behavior Coordinator at Baranco Elementary, another one of the district’s original ACE campuses, before being promoted to assistant principal there. LPSS credits him with keeping the ACE model’s safe, structured learning environment running smoothly at Baranco.

Abshire holds a bachelor’s degree in Exercise Science from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and a master’s degree in Educational Leadership from the American College of Education. Because he’s coming over from another ACE campus rather than outside the program, families shouldn’t expect a dramatic shift in how the school operates day to day. The model, the staffing structure, and the extended-day expectations that came with ACE are staying in place.

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