A married former teacher who was acquitted last week of sexually assaulting a student in a small Maine town said she was prepared for the worst: leaving her family behind and being sent to prison.

It took a jury less than two hours after a four-day trial to find Jill Lamontagne, 30, not guilty Thursday on all 14 counts she faced, including gross sexual assault and unlawful sexual contact, alleging that the former health teacher at Kennebunk High School had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old student last year.

But in an extensive interview Monday at her Kennebunk home, Lamontagne told the York County Coast Star she concocted a plan with help from a trauma counselor to ready herself for the worst-case scenario of being separated from her husband, Steve, and their young son and daughter.

Lamontagne organized how the couple’s son would get to school, as well as who would care for their daughter. She arranged for regular shipments of household items from Amazon and even meticulously doled out wardrobes for the children for the next few years.

“I would just sit there and sob as I did it, but it felt like the only thing I did have control over, I had to do these things,” Lamontagne said in her first interview since last week’s trial.

After initially being accused, Lamontagne stayed on her couch for a month and lost a lot of weight, she said. Later, upon being indicted, the avid runner continued keeping herself captive inside her home, hidden away from a town of 10,000 residents where virtually everyone knows each other — a “Catch-22” that’s been both a blessing and a curse, she said.

“My husband grocery shopped, or I would do a Hannaford-to-Go order and he would pick it up,” she said. “The beach was always my favorite place and I really struggled, I just couldn’t go. I’m a huge runner, and I didn’t even dare go for a run. I didn’t know if someone would say something, especially in front of my kids. So I didn’t even want to go out at first.”

Gradually, and with the continued help of a counselor, Lamontagne began leaving her home again and reactions from other Kennebunk residents were positive, she said. Her children, however, were in the dark about the possible years in prison she faced if convicted.

“The kids didn’t know anything about what was going on,” she said. “I was with them, but I wasn’t present, I really tried to be, but I wasn’t the same mother to them, and I have that guilt.”

Prosecutors had asked Lamontagne during her trial to explain the 86 text messages and 43 phone calls between her and the student, as well as a ride she gave the teen without permission from his parents. In response, Lamontagne testified that the messages and calls were meant to monitor the teen’s emotional and academic struggles and denied that they had a sexual relationship, as he testified earlier during the trial.

But Lamontagne said Monday that teachers communicating with students via text or phone has become “normalized” at the school, adding that the school’s current policy prohibiting such contact is out of date.

“I think that there’s an updated version that might be a better fit,” she said. “I used to look up my teacher’s number in the phone book and then call their home phone, but that’s not the way we live now. I don’t even have a home phone.”

Lamontagne said she couldn’t think of how she would’ve handled herself differently toward the teen, who is now 19.

“It’s easy to look at it that way now, but that’s just so not me,” she said.

With the trial now behind her, Lamontagne said she’s “ready to move on” and fulfill her purpose of helping people. She wants to return to Kennebunk High School, where she had hoped to work her entire career. Her father, once a vice principal, still teaches math at the school. But she realizes that’s a long shot at best after resigning her position in December after being placed on administrative leave following her arrest.

“Whatever I do, my purpose has always been helping people,” she told the newspaper. “That’s clearly what I want to do.”

District officials, however, seemingly ended Lamontagne’s hope for a possible reunion, issuing a statement after Thursday’s verdict acknowledging a “troubling failure by one of our teachers” to comply with its policy barring employees from communicating with students via phone or social media. In an interview Monday, RSU Superintendent Katie Hawes was even blunter about what she had expected out of Lamontagne.

“Our policy is don’t use your personal cellphone,” Hawes told the York County Coast Star. “You need to find a different way to reach students.”

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