What happened to you at Key School was not okay.

Key School, on Hillsmere Drive in Annapolis. Small classes, an informal, progressive place, a campus where the line between the grown-ups and the kids got thin. In January 2019 the school put its own investigators' report on its website: ten adults, at least sixteen students, the 1970s into the early 1990s. If you were there in those years, and a teacher (or anyone else the school put in charge of you) crossed a line with you, this is about you. Maybe only you.

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It was back in the 1970s, the decade most of the report's 41 pages dwell on, and the decade every woman who's sued so far was a student there. Maryland took the deadline off in 2023, and the state's highest court said in 2025 that it was allowed to. Details below.
You never told a soul. The investigators heard from 57 people in 2018. The report says nobody at the school ever reached out to ask how the students were doing, then or later.
You did tell someone, back then or in the 1990s, and nothing happened. The report says that too, in so many words: adults at the school knew and chose not to intervene. That is not a mark against you. It is the case.
It wasn't a classroom teacher. The report's ten include a Head of the Upper School who later became the college advisor, and two chaperones on school trips. The role screen above covers all of it.
You were already 18 when it happened, or you aren't sure. Answer honestly. The law reads differently for adults, and the lawyer sorts that out on the call, not you.
You're a sister, a husband, a classmate asking for someone who can't. Reach out anyway. Plenty of people do.

The Key School lawsuits and the 2019 report: what the public record says, and when

We didn't write what's below. The school's own investigators did, and two courts, and the reporters who covered them, and we link to every one of them. We don't add to it. Where a lawsuit says something, we say it alleges it. Where the school's report says something, we say the report found it. As far as the public record shows, none of the former employees named in that report was ever charged with a crime, and we don't name them here.

January to August 2018

A former student posted about two teachers under the tag #KeyToo. By February the head of school had written to families that people at Key in the past had failed to protect students, and by August seven former students had described abuse in the 1970s. The school hired two Baltimore lawyers to investigate. CBS Baltimore.

January 28, 2019

The head of school and the board president sent the report to the whole Key community and posted it. Their letter says the investigators, from the Baltimore firm Kramon & Graham, interviewed 57 people over eight months and concluded that ten adults in positions of authority at Key engaged in sexual misconduct or inappropriate relationships with students from the 1970s through the early 1990s, and that at least 16 former students were subjected to it. The school's own words: the abuse "was enabled by a toxic culture of permissiveness coupled with silence." It gave the report to Anne Arundel County Police and took a plaque honoring one of the ten off a bench on campus. Key School letter.

January 2019

The report itself. It concludes the school "failed to protect students," and that in each occurrence "there were other adults in the Key School community, including members of the faculty and staff, administrators, and Board members, who were aware of the abuse and inappropriate conduct and chose not to intervene." It finds that a former Head of the Upper School knew what four colleagues were doing and did nothing; that an alumna brought it all to the board in 1996; that the school reported to social services in early 1997; and that the same man stayed on campus for close to another twenty years. Report to the Board of Trustees.

October 1, 2023

Maryland's Child Victims Act took effect at midnight, and by 12:06 a.m. two women who'd been Key students in the 1970s had sued the school, one at 12:05 and the other a minute after her. The teachers the two complaints name show up in the school's 2019 report. Key said the matters "will be addressed through the judicial process." Baltimore Banner.

November 29, 2023

Six women now. Four more suits came in over the following two months, all describing male faculty in the 1970s. Every case was stayed while the courts took up a constitutional challenge to the new law, brought by the Archdiocese of Washington. The school said it had created a therapy fund. WYPR.

April 11, 2024

In the federal case, Bunker v. The Key School, Inc. (No. 1:23-cv-02662), a complaint pleading negligence, negligent hiring, and negligent supervision and retention, the judge sent the constitutional question to Maryland's Supreme Court, put the case on hold, and turned down the school's motion to dismiss for now. Key School itself was arguing the 2023 law was unconstitutional. D. Md. memorandum.

February 3, 2025

The Supreme Court of Maryland answered, 4 to 3, in three cases decided together, one of them The Key School, Inc. v. Bunker. The Child Victims Act stands. There is no vested right to be free of a claim just because an ordinary deadline ran out. The holds came off. Supreme Court of Maryland.

October 21, 2025

The federal case ended. The school had answered in April, the court had set a discovery schedule in May, and then both sides filed a stipulation dismissing it with prejudice. No terms on the docket. Neither side has said publicly what was agreed, or whether anything was. The state-court suits in Anne Arundel County are separate, and we haven't been able to check those dockets. Docket.

We checked this on September 12, 2026, and the newest thing in it is from October 21, 2025. When something new gets filed or decided, it goes in here within 72 hours, with the link.

Who can be held responsible in a Key School lawsuit

The school. Key School, Incorporated is the defendant in the suits filed so far; the federal case also named the corporation that holds its buildings. Not the teachers, several of whom died decades ago. The theory is the ordinary one: a school that puts adults in charge of children has to watch them, and has to act when it learns something. Negligence, negligent hiring, negligent supervision, negligent retention, the complaints call it, and that's the legal language for exactly this. What makes Key unusual is that the school's own report, paid for by the school and posted by the school, says the adults knew. A former Head of the Upper School, it says, knew four colleagues had been in improper sexual relationships with students, and chose to do nothing about it. In 1996 an alumna brought specific information to six board members; the school investigated, made a report to social services in early 1997, and the man stayed on campus for close to another twenty years.

Key is an independent, secular day school. It is not part of the Archdiocese of Baltimore and has nothing to do with that bankruptcy or its deadlines. It has a campus on Hillsmere Drive and about 665 students; a lawyer will look at its finances and at whatever insurance applies. Nobody has admitted anything. The one federal case ended in October 2025 with both sides agreeing to dismiss it, and the terms, if there were any, were never filed. The other suits are in the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County.

Your deadline: the Maryland statute of limitations for childhood sexual abuse

For abuse that happened when you were under 18, Maryland has no filing deadline. None. The Child Victims Act of 2023 says such a claim "may be filed at any time," and it says so "notwithstanding any time limitation under a statute of limitations, a statute of repose," or the state's tort-claims laws (Courts and Judicial Proceedings § 5-117(b)). It reaches back. 1975 counts the same as 2015. Key School argued that was unconstitutional, all the way up, and on February 3, 2025 the Supreme Court of Maryland said no, 4 to 3.

Two honest limits. The person it happened to has to be alive to bring it; once the alleged victim has died, § 5-117(d) closes the door on a revived claim. And the legislature changed the rules in 2025 (House Bill 1378, Chapter 104) for anything filed on or after June 1, 2025, though what changed is what a case can be worth and how the lawyer gets paid. Not whether you can file. A lawyer will explain what it means for you. We won't put numbers on it here, and you should be wary of anyone who does.

If you were 18 or older when it happened, the child-victims law does not apply. Maryland's general rule is three years from when a claim accrues (§ 5-101), and what "accrues" means in a case like yours is a question for a lawyer, not a web page. Answer the age question honestly and let them look. That is the whole reason we ask it.

Your situation still qualifies even if

You've never once said it out loud. Not to a spouse, a therapist, anyone.
You liked him. He was the teacher everybody liked. The report is full of people who say the same thing.
You thought of it as a relationship, and maybe you still do. The school's own investigators wrote that these "were not sexual relationships between adults that went wrong." You were a child in their charge.
You told the school in the 1990s, got a sympathetic hearing and a code of conduct, and nothing else. That is in the report. It closes nothing.
You went back for reunions. You gave money. You sent your own kids.
You live somewhere else now. Half a century on, who doesn't.

Facilities covered

Key School's campus on Hillsmere Drive in Annapolis, any division: Upper School, Middle School, Lower School, First School · school trips and off-campus programs with Key School chaperones · the athletic park and after-school programs. A different independent school in Anne Arundel County or the Baltimore-Washington corridor? The questions still work. Answer them and say where.

Questions people are asking

Can I sue Key School?

Six former students already have, in state court in Anne Arundel County and in federal court in Baltimore, and the cases name the school itself, not the teachers. Whether you can turns mostly on two things, how old you were and what happened, and the questions above are there to sort that out.

The teacher is dead. Can I still bring a claim?

Yes. The claims that matter are against the school, and the school is very much still there. Several of the men in the 2019 report have been dead for decades. The suits on file were brought anyway, and they were brought against Key School, Incorporated.

What did the Key School investigation find?

Read it in the school's words rather than ours; the letter and the full report are both linked above. Ten adults in positions of authority. At least sixteen students. Two decades, the 1970s into the early 1990s. And other adults, faculty, administrators, board members, who knew and chose not to intervene. The school commissioned it, posted it, apologized.

Am I too late? What about Maryland's statute of limitations?

Not for abuse of a minor. Since October 1, 2023 a claim like that "may be filed at any time" (that's § 5-117(b)), no matter what year it happened, and in February 2025 the Supreme Court of Maryland upheld it. The exceptions: the person it happened to has to be living, and claims by people who were adults at the time run on the ordinary three-year rule, which a lawyer has to read against your facts.

How much does a sexual abuse lawyer cost?

Here, nothing. Every case is on contingency. The lawyer is paid only out of what is recovered, and if nothing is recovered you owe nothing. Not for the call, not for the review, not for the case. Maryland also capped what a lawyer may charge on these claims in 2025; yours will tell you the exact terms before you sign anything.

What kind of lawyer handles this?

A civil lawyer who handles institutional sexual abuse cases against schools, meaning the organization, not only the individual. That is the only kind we work with, and the firm we work with handles Maryland cases whether you are still in Annapolis or in Virginia, Delaware, the District or three states away now.

Who sees your form

Kerim Eravci · Survivor Advocate · Not a lawyer

I was a victim, and I waited. Not because I didn't know what happened to me (I knew every day), but because I'd decided it was over, mine to carry, nobody's business. When I finally went looking for a lawyer, the answer came back in two words I'd never thought about: statute of limitations. My time had run out while I was busy getting through it.

What that has cost me since is a long story, and I'll tell you the whole thing in private, if you want it. The short version is the reason my name is on this page: I'm here to help people do what I wish I'd done, which is find out where you stand while the door's still open.

I'm not a lawyer. I read what you send, I call you once, on your terms, and nothing gets filed unless you say so. Ask sooner than I did.

Kerim Eravci is not an attorney. He's a survivor.

What happens next. Three steps, nothing more until you say so.

You answer 6 questions. Nothing is filed. Nothing starts.
A survivor calls you, once. Not a robot, not a call center. Someone who has been where you are.
You decide. You find out your options. If you want to stop there, you stop there.

How this works

ME2 Survivors Alliance protects the heart. Licensed MD attorneys do the legal work. We are not lawyers and we don't pretend to be.

You never pay a dollar

Every case is on contingency. There is no charge for the call, the review, or the case. The firm is paid only out of a recovery, and if there is no recovery you owe nothing.