KENNEBUNK—Police are investigating allegations that a Kennebunk High School teacher had a sexual relationship with a male student, the school superintendent said.
Jill Lamontagne, a health teacher at the high school, was placed on administrative leave on June 12 when the family of a 17-year-old student notified school authorities that he had had sexual contact with her, said Katie Hawes, superintendent of RSU 21.
“We’ve been in close communication with both the police department and the Department of Health and Human Services,” Hawes said.
Details of the alleged relationship were disclosed in a protection from abuse order filed in Biddeford District Court by the student’s mother on the boy’s behalf.
The family sought the protection order two days after Lamontagne was placed on leave, and described in court documents how a sudden hospitalization for a suspected suicide attempt led the student to reveal the relationship to a family member, a registered nurse and a psychiatrist.
If Lamontagne is criminally charged, the district would consider terminating her, Hawes said.
It is a class-C felony punishable by up to five years in prison for a teacher or anyone with supervisory authority over children to engage in sexual contact with someone under the age of 18 who is in their care.
The Press Herald is not naming the student because he is the alleged victim of sexual assault. A message left for the victim’s mother was not returned.
No one answered the door at Lamontagne’s Kennebunk home, and a call to her attorney, Thomas Richard, was not returned Wednesday.
A 2013 article published online in the Kennebunk High School newspaper said Lamontagne is a graduate of Kennebunk High School, received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Southern Maine, and her master’s degree from the University of New England.
In a narrative included in the protection order, the boy was admitted to the emergency room June 9 after taking ibuprofen, Tylenol, cold medicine and warfarin, a blood thinner. A day later, he admitted to his aunt that rumors about him and Lamontagne were true. He had previously denied the relationship.
“He stated it was all true and he was sorry, so sorry for all the bad things he did,” the boy’s mother wrote. “He said he loved her, he said it happened numerous times, in the classroom, at her house, in her car. She told him that she hadn’t had a sexual relationship in two years.”
The boy said Lamontagne performed oral sex on him, and that “other stuff happened.”
He also admitted to his mother that he had told two classmates what had happened when he was “wasted,” according to the protection order, but that he shouldn’t have said anything because he didn’t want Lamontagne to go to jail.
He described one day when Lamontagne was attending a workshop after a half-day, and that she instructed him to meet her at her home, which is about 2 miles away, where they “fooled around,” according to the protection order.
Court records indicate Lamontagne is married and has children.
At a hearing Monday in Biddeford, a judge agreed to extend for two years the temporary protection from abuse order granted June 14. Lamontagne, through her attorney, agreed to have no contact with the boy or his family.
Hawes, the school superintendent, said the district hired Lamontagne five years ago, first as an ed tech and then as a full-time health teacher about four years ago.
Lamontagne passed all legally required background checks, Hawes said.
A request with the state Department of Education to determine whether Lamontagne was in fact properly licensed had not been completed as of Wednesday afternoon, but Hawes said the district followed all state laws, and performed an additional check against the national sex offender registry when Lamontagne was hired.
Matt Byrne can be contacted at 791-6303 or at:
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