What happened to you at Mt. Carmel was not okay.

Stacy Michelle Walker taught drama and theater tech at Mt. Carmel High School in Rancho Peñasquitos and directed the plays. In July 2024 she pleaded guilty in San Diego County Superior Court to three felonies involving a student, conduct that started when the girl was 15, and that August a judge sent her to state prison for three years. One student went to the police. If you were in that theater program, or anywhere on that campus in those years, and something happened that you have never said out loud, this is about you.

Free
Confidential
No obligation
You never pay a dollar

6 questions. Your answers are private and go to one person.

This applies to you no matter what

You were not the student in the criminal case. One girl went to the police on July 31, 2023, and one is who the District Attorney charged over. A plea is a floor, not a headcount.
It never got as far as what was in the complaint. Messages that shouldn't have been sent, a ride somewhere, a closeness that wasn't right and that you half knew wasn't. A school answers for that too.
It was somebody else, not her. A different teacher, a coach, a campus aide. The questions above don't ask for a name.
You had turned 18 by the time it stopped. The plea covers a student who was 15 when it started. What matters for the deadline below is what happened while you were a minor, and a lawyer sorts out the rest.
You told a friend, a parent, a counselor, and nothing changed. Say so on the call, because it counts for more than you'd guess.
Or it isn't you. A parent, a castmate, a friend who's asking because somebody else can't yet. Reach out anyway.

The Mt. Carmel record: the arrest, the charges, the plea, the sentence, and when

We didn't write what's below. The San Diego Police Department, the District Attorney, a Superior Court judge and the reporters who sat in the courtroom did, and we link to every one of them. We don't add to it. The word "alleged" appears where a fact was alleged and not proven; the plea and the sentence are what they are.

March 20, 2024

San Diego police arrested Stacy Michelle Walker, 40, who taught theater tech and drama at Mt. Carmel High and directed its plays and musicals. The case had been open since July 31, 2023, the day a former student came forward. According to police it began when she was 15 and didn't stop at her 18th birthday. She'd be arraigned that Friday, downtown, in San Diego Superior Court. NBC 7 San Diego.

March 21, 2024

17 counts, all felonies, is what the District Attorney filed the next day, among them luring a minor for sexual purposes, oral copulation of a minor and sexual penetration of a minor with a foreign object. Bail: $405,000, to start with. As for where any of it had happened, the most a police lieutenant would give reporters was "various locations." Times of San Diego.

March 22, 2024

Walker's answer was not guilty, and the judge brought bail down to $150,000. Deputy District Attorney Vanessa Gerard, for her part, called it "a highly inappropriate relationship," and the complaint has it running through 2018 and 2019 and on until 2020, which is three school years. Parents, meanwhile, got a letter from Principal Yael Bozzay: Walker had been put on leave the summer before, when the allegations first came up, and hadn't taught there that school year. Times of San Diego.

July 2, 2024

This is the day she pleaded guilty, in San Diego County Superior Court, to three felonies, and they were sexual penetration by a foreign object, oral copulation of a person under 18, and contacting a minor with intent to commit a sexual offense; she admitted as well that she'd taken advantage of a position of trust to commit them. How it went, in the prosecutors' telling: sexual conversations first, then explicit messages, photographs and videos, then sex acts. ABC 10News.

August 14, 2024

Three years in state prison, and registration as a sex offender for life. That was the sentence. The student is 22 now. She stood up in court and talked about the dinners and the shows that came before anything else, about the secret she was made to keep, about the depression and the panic attacks and the PTSD she carries around. To the woman who had been her teacher she said this: "It was never my job to police your adult decisions." NBC 7 San Diego.

We checked this on September 12, 2026, and the newest thing in it is from August 14, 2024. When something new gets filed or decided, it goes in here within 72 hours, with the link.

Who can be held responsible in a Mt. Carmel High School lawsuit

The district, first. Poway Unified School District runs Mt. Carmel, and Poway Unified was her employer. A teacher who does this to a student answers for herself in criminal court, and Walker has. A school district answers, in civil court, for how it hired her, how it watched her, and what it did with whatever anyone noticed along the way. That is a different question with a different set of rules, and it is the question a lawyer asks about your years there, not hers.

One thing the plea settles for you: nobody has to argue about whether it happened. Walker admitted the conduct and admitted she used her position of trust to do it. What a civil case looks at is the district's side, over three school years, and that has not been decided by anything that happened in the criminal courtroom.

Because Poway Unified is a public body, a couple of things are different, and a lawyer will walk you through them: California puts no cap on what a jury can award against a school district in a case like this, and for anything after the start of 2009 there is no government claim to file before a lawsuit. Everything in the criminal case falls after 2009.

Your deadline: the California statute of limitations for sexual abuse at a public high school

Until you turn 40, or five years from the day you understood what it did to you, whichever is later. That is California's rule for anyone abused as a minor (Code of Civil Procedure 340.1), and it's the reason we ask what year you were born. Anyone on that campus in 2018 came into the world somewhere around 2002 or 2003, which leaves sixteen-odd years before 40 comes around. Not close.

Poway Unified being a public body changes nothing for those years. Anything after January 1, 2009 goes straight to court, no government claim to file first; that's Government Code 905(m). Anything after January 1, 2024 carries no deadline at all. Before 2009 gets harder, because the window that used to exist for older cases shut at the end of 2022 and what's left depends on facts only a lawyer can weigh, so ask before you assume either way.

Plainly: born in 1987 or later, you're inside on age alone, and if your years there were 2018 to 2020, or any year back to 2009, you have time. The rest doesn't keep, though. Messages get deleted. Phones get replaced. And whoever saw something at a rehearsal in 2019 has scattered a bit further every year since.

Your situation still qualifies even if

You never told a soul. Not a castmate, not a parent, nobody.
You still have every message. Or you wiped all of them the week of the arrest. Either way.
You liked her. The theater kids did. That is why it worked, and the sentencing record says as much.
You were 17, or a few weeks from 18, and you've decided that makes it not count. It counts.
You live somewhere else now, with a different number. So does most of the class of 2020.

Where this applies

Mount Carmel High School at 9550 Carmel Mountain Road in Rancho Peñasquitos, plus everything that ran under its name. Drama. Theater tech. The plays and the musicals, the rehearsals, the cast trips, anything off campus that started at school. A different Poway Unified school, or a different district up in North County? The questions still work. Answer them and say where.

Questions people are asking

Can I sue Poway Unified School District over Stacy Walker?

If you were a minor at Mt. Carmel and a teacher crossed a line, California law lets you bring a claim against the district as the employer, not only against the teacher. The plea does the hardest part for you, which is proving it happened. Whether your facts make a case against the district is what the free review is for.

She's already in prison. What is a lawsuit even for?

Criminal court decided her punishment. Civil court decides what the district owes the students it was supposed to be watching over, and it is the only place that question gets asked. Nobody asked it on your behalf in the criminal case.

How long do I have to sue a California school district for sexual abuse?

Longer than you'd think. For abuse as a minor the clock runs to your 40th birthday or five years after you connected what happened to the harm it did, whichever comes later. For conduct after 2009 at a public school there is no government claim to file first. The Mt. Carmel years in the criminal case, 2018 to 2020, are nowhere near the line.

Three felonies, she pleaded to. Which three?

Sexual penetration by a foreign object was one. Oral copulation of a person under 18 was another. The third was contacting a minor with intent to commit a sexual offense, and on top of those she admitted she'd used a position of trust. That plea went in on July 2, 2024, in San Diego County Superior Court, a little over three months after the DA had filed 17 counts. Three years in state prison came out of it, and registration for life.

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.

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 California 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.