An associate principal at Evergreen High School, who resigned from the job last month, appeared in Clark County Superior Court on Friday morning, facing allegations that she had sex with a teenage student at the school.
Sadie R. Pritchard, 41, could be charged with three counts of first-degree sexual misconduct with a minor. Her arraignment was set for next week.
Senior Deputy Prosecutor Colin Hayes requested the judge set Pritchard’s bail at $5,000. Pritchard’s privately-hired attorney argued that his client is well-established in the community and would appear at all scheduled court hearings.
Judge Robert Lewis decided to release Pritchard from custody.
Lewis ordered Pritchard have no contact with the victim or other minor children, and she is barred from entering places occupied by kids, such as schools.
According to a probable cause affidavit, the victim told investigators on May 22 that they’d had “sexual intercourse with (the) vice principal, Sadie Pritchard, at Evergreen High School.”
The student said Pritchard started following them on Instagram around October 2017. She offered to help the student with homework, and then the contact turned flirtatious, leading to the exchange of nude photos, according to the affidavit.
What followed were alleged sexual encounters during the school day in Pritchard’s office, starting around mid-December and lasting roughly six weeks. Other alleged instances happened in what was referred to in the affidavit as a testing room.
Pritchard allegedly gave the student upwards of $1,000 on a regular basis for several months. The student denied that the money was an exchange for sex or to keep them quiet.
When asked what ended the relationship, the student said they thought about what was happening and became mad, so they told Pritchard it could no longer continue, according to the affidavit.
There also were emails found by the Evergreen Public Schools human resources director in which Pritchard would request the student be pulled from class and report to her office, as well as requests that teachers change the student’s grades to a fail or pass status in an effort to improve their GPA, according to the affidavit.
Pritchard was not interviewed by police; she had hired an attorney by the time of her arrest.
She was on administrative leave when she resigned May 29. The school district placed Pritchard on leave in mid-May, “as soon as the school received an initial report she acted inappropriately with a student,” spokeswoman Gail Spolar said in an email.
Spolar said the Vancouver Police Department was immediately called in when the school learned about the alleged inappropriate behavior. The police department started investigating with the full cooperation of the school district, she said.
Pritchard passed required background checks, conducted by Washington State Patrol and the FBI, when she was hired in 2011, Spolar said. She also completed numerous trainings regarding staff-student interactions, she said.
Pritchard worked at several schools in the district. She was hired as a “teacher on special assignment” and served secondary schools.
Following her initial year of employment, she spent three years as the associate principal at Mountain View High School. From 2015 until her resignation, she worked in that role at Evergreen High School.
“There is only one student that has been identified at this point. However, if any other students have additional information, they need to contact (the Vancouver Police Department) immediately,” Spolar said.
Including Pritchard, at least four Evergreen Public Schools educators have been investigated in the past three years for inappropriate or sexual behavior directed toward students:
Stephanie McCrea, who taught drama and English at Evergreen High School, was sentenced in September 2015 to five years in prison for having sex with a 15-year-old male student.
Matthew Morasch, a freshman physics teacher at Evergreen High School, was sentenced in August 2017 to six months in jail for trying to take “upskirt” images of a 14-year-old girl in his class and another woman at a local Goodwill store in spring 2015. He is appealing his convictions.
Mark A. Lugliani, a substitute teacher for the school district, was charged with third-degree child molestation last month. The charges follow allegations that he molested a physically disabled female student at an Evergreen school.
Reporter Katie Gillespie contributed to this story.
