It took a jury less than an hour of deliberating last Thursday to acquit former Kennebunk High School teacher Jill Lamontagne of 14 counts of sexual misconduct involving a minor.
Only two people know for certain what did or didn’t happen in this case: Jill Lamontagne and her accuser, who was 17 years old at the time of the alleged offenses. Several defense witnesses contradicted his version of the events in question, and skillful cross-examination by Ms. Lamontagne’s attorney, Scott Gardner, revealed further inconsistencies in his story.
Full disclosure: I have been a Kennebunk High School faculty member for the past 16 years. Ms. Lamontagne was my colleague for five of them. I liked and respected her both as a colleague and as a human being, and admired her for her energy, her creativity, and her genuine commitment to helping every student she interacted with.
When Ms. Lamontagne was initially charged I was horrified for two reasons. Number one, I could not imagine any colleague, let alone one with deep roots in the community and a deserved reputation for dedication and compassion, committing the sorts of acts she was accused of. But even more chilling was the knowledge that what had befallen Jill Lamontagne could just as easily have happened to me, or to any of our colleagues.
School policy specifies staff members are not to exchange text messages with students. Teachers of my vintage have no problem adhering to such a rule; it seems like common sense. But I was born more than four decades before any of my current students, and while I fully understand the rationale behind that guideline, some younger colleagues who‘ve grown up with instant communication at their fingertips find such mandated limitations both challenging and pointless. And for better or for worse Twitter, Snapchat, and similar forms of social media easily accessed on cell phones isn’t just the preferred and convenient method of communication for today’s young people; it’s the only way they know.
At the start of my first year of teaching an older colleague counseled me to never allow myself to be alone with a student, male or female, behind a closed door.
But what happens when a teary-eyed student enters a classroom after school, shuts the door behind her, and tells her teacher she’s being mistreated by her boyfriend, or by an by abusive parent? “Come back when there’s a third party present,” may be the best way to cover one’s derriere, but is following standard protocol to the letter the best way for a trusted adult to serve a young person in a moment of crisis?
Some years ago one of my ninth-grade students wrote something in an assigned journal entry that suggested to me she might be harboring thoughts of self-harm. The situation clearly called for discretion, so when I asked her about it after class I did so with no one else in the room and the door shut. That brief interaction convinced both of us she did indeed need help, and fortunately I was able to assist her in getting it. But suppose I had ignored or rebuffed her in her moment of need? What might have happened then?
No one should have to endure what Jill Lamontagne and her family did for the past 15 months. But school administrators are bound by law to investigate any allegations of teacher impropriety; failing to do so could (and should) cost them their jobs. And if police deem the allegations credible, charges have to be filed, and it becomes the job of the government’s judicial branch to sort things out.
Fortunately, in this case the system worked. Jill Lamontagne was exonerated, and justice has been done.
Or has it? True, she’s free to help her children get on the school bus for the first time, and to pursue employment in her chosen field of endeavor. But what about the tens of thousands of dollars it cost her to defend herself against spurious charges? Or the horrific things written about her that went viral on the Internet? Un-besmirching the tattered reputation of someone wrongly accused of sexual misconduct isn’t quite as difficult as un-executing an individual wrongly convicted of murder, but it’s close.
Decent people should hope Ms. Lamontagne’s troubled accuser gets the help he clearly needs, and the sooner the better.
But as difficult as acquiring that assistance may be for him, it won’t be any harder than the challenge his former teacher faces: recovering some semblance of the life she had envisioned for herself and her family before her just-completed nightmare began.
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