Port Angeles School Board Meets Tonight for First Time Since Hamilton Lawsuit; 2026-27 Budget Hearing to Follow

The Port Angeles School District Board of Directors will hold its regular meeting tonight at 5 p.m. in Room 208 of the Lincoln Center, 905 W. Ninth St. 

It is the board's first regular meeting since June 18, when directors voted 4-1 to censure Director Nancy Hamilton, and its first since Hamilton sued the district and the board on July 14 in Clallam County Superior Court.

Nothing on the published agenda references the censure, Resolution 2526-18, or the litigation, and no executive session is listed. The consent agenda does include approval of the minutes of the June 18 meeting, the session at which the censure was adopted.

A public hearing on the district's proposed 2026-27 budget follows at 6:30 p.m. Greg Geyer, the district's director of finance and operations, will present the proposed budget, and community comments on the budget will be taken. Adoption is scheduled for the board's next regular meeting on Aug. 13.

The hearing follows a spring in which the district cut staffing, including a paraeducator reduction in force approved in May over Hamilton's objection, to help close a roughly $1.9 million shortfall for 2026-27 that the district has tied to declining enrollment and rising costs.

During the regular meeting, directors are scheduled to act on Resolution 2627-01, described in agenda materials as a delegation resolution for the sale of the district's 2026 unlimited tax general obligation bonds. 

Voters approved the $140 million bond program in November 2024. In May, the board was told the district planned to sell the remaining $110 million this fall to fund the new Hurricane Ridge Middle School, which is replacing Stevens Middle School, a new Franklin Elementary School and upgrades at Port Angeles High School.

The board also will consider the district's 2026-27 fee schedule and first readings of revised Policy 2125, Sexual Health Education, and Policy 2126, HIV/AIDS Prevention Education.

Directors will make the board's 2026-27 committee assignments, including a legislative representative, a Washington Interscholastic Activities Association representative and an audit committee, along with representatives to eight other committees and boards, among them career and technical education, instructional materials, safe schools and the Cares Team community engagement boards.

Scheduled presentations include the technology department's annual review from Jarred Blauser, director of educational technology; a report on the district's Safe Schools program from Casey McDonald and Eric Britton; results from the district's 2025-26 CEE survey from Rhonda Kromm; and Geyer's June financial report. Superintendent Michelle Olsen is scheduled to report near the end of the meeting.

The consent agenda also includes personnel actions, roughly $4.9 million in vouchers and wire payments (more than $4 million of it from the capital projects fund), two signed change orders on the middle school project, and the surplus of four district vehicles.

The meeting is open to the public and will be streamed live on the district's YouTube channel.

Community comments on agenda and non-agenda items will be taken during the regular meeting; speakers sign up on a sheet in the hallway, state their name when called and are limited to three minutes. 

Comments emailed in advance will be distributed to directors during the correspondence portion of the meeting.

The agenda asks attendees to refrain from disrupting the proceedings, citing RCW 42.30.050, the Open Public Meetings Act provision on interruptions. 

At the June 18 meeting, board President Sandy Long twice called five-minute recesses amid audience outbursts.