New Allegations of Teacher Sex Abuse at Duke Ellington

The News4 I-Team’s investigation of allegations of teacher sex abuse at one of Washington, D.C.'s most prestigious high schools has prompted two additional former students to come forward about their encounters with another teacher.

"I really thought that I was romantically involved with him and I thought I was in love with him," said one young woman, now 22. "It just showed that I wasn't alone in that."

The young woman, whom News 4 is not identifying because she's an alleged victim of sexual abuse, graduated from Duke Ellington School of the Arts in 2017. She told the I-Team for years she's avoided talking about what her former teacher, Mark Walker, is now accused of doing while she was his student. She never reported it until a detective called her in 2020 after another former student came forward.

"I was like, OK, something is actually going to happen and I can be free. So, in that conversation, on the phone with the detective that day, I completely broke down," she said.  

She said she was just 15 years old when the relationship began in 2015 and that it continued for more than a year. She was in Walker's photography class at the school, acclaimed for developing elite artists. But she said the mentoring relationships in the arts program also created vulnerability.

"He started to ask us, like, personal questions and making sure that we could trust him," she said. "I confided in him about the death of my father."

She told the I-Team despite Walker being her teacher and a working artist who painted murals around the District, she and other students thought of him as a friend. She added that he often called and texted late at night. 

"When we came back from the summer after sophomore year, he kind of gave me this letter, like, explaining his affections towards me ... letting me know that how beautiful I was and why I was special," she said, adding that the relationship escalated to a romantic and physical one but eventually went beyond what she was comfortable with.

"I did say, 'I told you no, and I told you why I didn't want to, and you still took it upon yourself to do it,'" she said. "I was in, like, full tears, traumatized, horrified at this moment. And he tried to console me."

She said she told a few friends shortly after it happened but avoided the details.

"Everyone loved him, so I didn't want to feel isolated if I did say anything," she said. 

But someone did say something. The mother of a classmate who'd heard about the alleged relationship told the I-Team she mentioned it to a school administrator in 2016 but does not recall if she had the student's name at the time. Her daughter told the I-Team she knew the student's identity in high school but that school administrators never asked her about her mother's report. They both declined to be interviewed on camera and asked not to be identified publicly.

A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police Department said there is no record of a report on Walker prior to 2020.

D.C. Public Schools hasn’t responded to an I-Team request for records regarding Walker, but in a court filing said it had no responsibility in part because Walker and most of the other Duke Ellington staff are employees of the school, not the school district.

A school spokesperson acknowledged employee files were not properly maintained at that time but said no one recalls that report from the mom.

The young woman told the I-Team Walker warned her about that report when it happened.

"He told me, you know, I'm going to have to be investigated by administration, and they're probably going to ask you questions," she said, adding that by that time the whole senior class was aware of the relationship. But she said no one from the school's administration ever asked her about it.

"They never came to talk to me. I just kind of pushed it to the back of my mind and tried to finish my senior year," she said. 

She said Walker also gave her a similar warning in 2018, after she'd graduated. She provided the I-Team with copies of text messages indicating he wanted to give her a heads up in case she was questioned, saying he was sorry. He said administration was going to "investigate" what he referred to as "old rumors" that he was sleeping with students - after current students had reported it.

The school's current principal told the I-Team she recalls a group of students making a report to her regarding Walker's general behavior in 2018 but says the part about an alleged relationship only involved a former student who had already turned 18.

The principal says she contacted police and the school district anyway but was told there was nothing to investigate. She told the I-Team she placed Walker on a performance improvement plan in January 2019.

The texts provided to the I-Team also include one from January 2019, just one day after he was placed on the improvement plan, in which the young woman says he texted her saying the investigation was over and he had been cleared. The principal told the I-Team they mutually agreed he would resign later that year. She declined to be interviewed on camera regarding the handling of the allegations.

"It just feels like there was ample evidence to find and both times nothing came out of it," another former student from the same class told the I-Team. 

She says Walker told her about the alleged relationship with her classmate and both "investigations" in 2016 and 2018.

"That's weird and not normal to be having a relationship with your high school teacher. But for some reason, based on how he presented himself to us, all of us heard that and still didn't say anything," she said.

That changed in 2020.

"I'm the one that ended up saying something, years later after it happened to me," she said.

She told the I-Team she had always considered Walker to be a close friend and that they confided in each other often. But shortly after graduation in 2017, before she left for college, she said Walker turned their friendship physical.

"When things, like, escalated, he was, like, 'You're 17. We can't do this.' And then did it anyway," she said.

She told the I-Team her 2020 report to DCPS was forwarded to police, but she was heartbroken and furious when a detective told her that her sexual encounter with Walker wasn't against the law because she was no longer his student and she had turned 17.

"That six months didn't stop it from harming me. It didn't stop it from changing how I saw myself and how I trusted people," she said. "It didn't stop any of the trauma around it, but it does impede on any legal action being able to be taken, and that makes me feel sick."

But she did point police toward her classmate and another teen from their school who she said Walker had told her about. Police records show that third young woman declined to talk with detectives. She also declined to speak with the I-Team.

Both of the former students who are sharing their stories now say they felt empowered by watching earlier I-Team reports where two young women accused a different former teacher from the school of similar sexual encounters while they were his students a decade apart, which reinforced that they were not to blame.

"It just highlighted the fact that like, no, you couldn't have participated in this, you were a child," she said. "It definitely just unveiled how much grooming was done for all of us."

Police arrested Mark Walker last year on one charge of first-degree child sex abuse. In his first appearance, he entered a plea of not guilty. But because of repeated COVID-19 delays, his case is still awaiting consideration by a grand jury.

The alleged victim from the criminal case has also filed a civil case against Walker, the school and a former principal in which Walker invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination 185 times. Neither he nor his attorney returned the I-Team's calls or emails seeking comment.

"I'm thankful, honestly, especially that she said my name and thought about me," said the young woman. "I just want justice ... for me and then all of the other women as well, regardless of the teacher."

Reported by Jodie Fleischer; produced by Rick Yarborough; and shot by Steve Jones, Carlos Olazagasti and David Mulligan.