The Pajaro Valley Unified School Board approved a $2.2 million payout during closed session on Oct. 22 for sexual abuse allegations that occurred in the 1990s. (Amaya Edwards — Santa Cruz Local/CatchLight Local)

APTOS >> Leaders of Pajaro Valley Unified School District approved a $2.2 million settlement to a man who said he was sexually abused by his teacher as an elementary and middle-schooler in the 1990s. 

Candace Ann Mercer, who taught fifth grade at Rio Del Mar Elementary, was convicted of lewd or lascivious acts with a child under 14 in 1997. 

The lawsuit, filed in 2021 in the Santa Cruz County Superior Court, sought to hold the school district liable for Mercer’s abuse. In court filings the man, identified as E.S., wrote that he had been sexually abused for three years, starting as a fifth grader in Mercer’s class.

He alleged that district officials knew the teacher frequently took students to off campus events outside of school hours, and that Mercer openly offered to buy students alcohol and invited them to her home.

In an August 2024 deposition, a parent of another of Mercer’s students said that she met with former Rio Del Mar principal Dorma Baker to raise concerns over Mercer’s behavior with students. The parent said she never received any follow-up from the school about an investigation. The following school year, in 1997, Mercer was arrested.

A former district employee said in an October 2023 deposition that she notified the school administration years earlier, in the early 1990s, after seeing students giving Mercer a massage in the classroom on two occasions.

Mercer, now 68 and living in Michigan, was subpoenaed to a deposition but refused to answer most questions from attorneys on either side, pleading the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination.

Another alleged victim of Mercer’s lost a lawsuit against PVUSD in February. That student lived within the school district but did not attend Rio Del Mar Elementary and was not taught by Mercer. The man’s lawyers filed to appeal the ruling. 

Both civil suits were made possible by a 2019 change to California law, the California Child Victims Act, that extended the length of time institutions could be sued for past sexual abuse. 

The Pajaro Valley Unified School Board voted to approve the $2.2 million payment during the closed session of its Oct. 22 meeting. 

Lawyers for E.S. declined to comment on the settlement and said it has not yet been finalized. Representatives for the school district did not provide comment in time for publication.

The PVUSD payout follows a $1.4 million settlement in August over alleged sexual abuse by former San Lorenzo Valley Unified School District administrator Ned Hearn, the Press Banner reported. The alleged abuse occurred in Solano County in the 1990s when Hearn was a swim coach in Dixon Unified School District.

Last year, Santa Cruz City Schools settled for $4.5 million a lawsuit from two former students who alleged they were sexually abused by former Branciforte Junior High teacher Steven Myers in the 1980s.

A Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline is available 24/7 by calling ‭or texting the word “BEGIN” to (800) 422-4453‬. Monarch Services has a 24-hour confidential, bilingual crisis line for survivors of sexual assault, human trafficking and domestic violence, call at 1-888-900-4232. They have offices in Watsonville and Santa Cruz. 

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