EAST HELENA — Aleigha Tremblay-Drynan got up early Saturday morning and headed to East Helena City Hall. The former East Valley Middle School (EVMS) student was joined by others to protest the continued employment of EVMS teacher Erik Pritchard.
“It’s just been too long,” Tremblay-Drynan said. “I have children now that I need to protect.”
Tremblay-Drynan is just one of numerous former students and parents who have posted online about what they characterize as inappropriate behavior from Pritchard, like one assignment the 2021 East Helena graduate says she remembers clearly.
“Only the girls in our class he made go out into the hallway and do a slow-motion jumping jack video, because he said we were learning how to say jumping jack in Spanish,” Tremblay-Drynan said.
She is not the only former student who recounted a similar assignment to MTN News.
Isaac McGuire, a 2024 East Helena graduate, said he saw it happen in his class, too.
“He would take the girls out of class or whatnot and have them perform a jumping action for the Spanish word for ‘jump,’” McGuire said.
Other former students recalled different incidents with Pritchard they say crossed a line.
“I said I was eating, and he looked me up and down, and then focused on my stomach and said, ‘I don’t think you need any more snacks,’” said Anna Shipman, East Helena class of 2023.
Shipman said she reported this incident to the school counselor after it happened. Tremblay-Drynan also said she reported a comment she witnessed Pritchard make to her friend.
“He made a comment about how her breasts looked bigger over the summer, and she matured and it showed,” Tremblay-Drynan said.
MTN reached out to Pritchard for an interview, and while he declined, he sent the following statement: “I believe East Helena Public Schools hires and develops some of the state's best teachers. That a few individuals are lying and attacking a teacher is saddening and disruptive to normal school operations.”
MTN also contacted the East Helena Public School District for more information about the alleged incidents and reports to school staff. Superintendent Dan Ripens said he is unable to discuss teacher personnel records, student investigations and employee discipline, but he confirmed the administration is aware of multiple student reports regarding the same teacher, and he wrote in part: “Any allegations reported formally are investigated or already have been.”
In March of 2024, a Title IX investigation into a student complaint found Pritchard violated sexual harassment as defined by Title IX as “unwelcome conduct as determined by a reasonable person to be so severe, pervasive and objectively offensive that it effectively denies a person’s equal access to the recipient’s education program or activity.”
Supporting information submitted via email as part of that investigation also mentions an assignment in which a female student was told to record herself doing jumping jacks while reciting Spanish words.
Shipman and Tremblay-Drynan both said they are surprised Pritchard is still teaching.
“Like how can he still be there?” Tremblay Drynan said.
“People need to be listening to kids more,” Shipman said.
An online petition calling on the district to fire Pritchard has more than 560 verified signatures, and along with the protest on Saturday, people attended a East Helena Public Schools board meeting on Monday demanding action.
