Port Angeles School District Fired Secretary Without Just Cause, Delayed Union Records, Rulings Find

The Port Angeles School District released seven arbitration decisions to The Olympic Herald, in response to a public-records request.

One ruling ordered reinstatement and back pay for a Stevens Middle School secretary fired after more than nine years without prior discipline. The district had failed to prove misconduct.

Two other decisions found that it violated labor contracts by delaying records unions needed to represent employees, with waits of roughly nine months and more than three months.

District failed to justify firing longtime secretary

The secretary, identified in the award as Janeva Maneval, began working for the district in September 2015. A coworker’s complaint alleging unwanted touching led to an investigation in 2024. Maneval denied the allegation.

The school board voted November 14, 2024, to fire her on then-Superintendent Martin Brewer’s recommendation. Her dismissal took effect November 22.

The district argued that an outside investigator had substantiated the complaint and that the alleged conduct justified firing Maneval without first imposing a lesser penalty. It also urged arbitrator Marsha Saylor to accept the investigator’s credibility findings.

Saylor rejected that request, explaining that the labor agreement required her to make her own assessment of the evidence presented at arbitration.

In her February 26, 2026, ruling, Saylor found that Maneval had consistently denied the incident during the investigation, her pretermination hearing and arbitration.

She described Maneval as “a forthright witness” and found her testimony more credible than the coworker’s.

Saylor found inconsistencies between the coworker’s earlier accounts and his hearing testimony. No witness at arbitration corroborated his account, she found.

She also rejected the district’s claim that Maneval’s initial statement that she did not recall the incident contradicted her denial.

“The District has pointed to a credibility mountain with a linguistic molehill,” she wrote.

Saylor also criticized the district for spending hearing time and part of its written brief attacking union representative Kristi Taylor, whose testimony was not central to the case.

The district’s “needless complaining about her served no purpose,” she wrote.

Finding no just cause for the firing, Saylor ordered Maneval reinstated with back pay and benefits, minus her interim earnings. She also ordered all references to the termination removed from Maneval’s record.

District delayed records unions needed

In a related records dispute decided June 5, 2025, Saylor found that the office professionals’ union waited roughly nine months for the complaint that prompted an employee investigation.

By the time the union received it in January 2025, the employee had been placed on leave and fired.

“There was no possible excuse for this kind of delay on such an important document,” Saylor wrote.

The district relied entirely on the outside investigation to make its termination decision, Saylor found. Yet it gave the union the investigative report while refusing to provide the underlying notes, asserting attorney-client privilege. The district also argued that some requested records were part of an ongoing investigation.

Saylor found the union was entitled to the investigator’s notes, instructions and emails.

She concluded that the district violated the contract by failing to provide records the union had repeatedly requested and ordered immediate production of all outstanding information.

Citing an earlier award, Saylor wrote that the district was on notice “from two different arbitrators” about its incorrect approach to document production.

The district also sought dismissal because the union filed its arbitration demand 10 business days late. Saylor rejected the objection, citing prompt notice, no harm to the district and both parties’ inconsistent adherence to deadlines.

She also pointed to the district’s own delays: “The District cannot now come in and say gotcha.”

In a March 3, 2026, award, arbitrator Sally A. LaJoie faulted a delay of more than three months in providing records the Port Angeles Education Association needed to represent an employee who complained of a hostile work environment. The union had requested them before a scheduled meeting with the investigator.

LaJoie found that the district was already on clear notice of its obligations, yet handled the request as an ordinary public-records request despite knowing an employee complaint was under investigation.

Records could have been released sooner, including in installments, she found. The district offered no evidence that it could not provide them more quickly.

She acknowledged staffing constraints and accepted that a delivery error was accidental. She found insufficient evidence that the district willfully tried to thwart union representation.

She required a response within 10 calendar days to negotiate or discuss concerns with the union, followed by production within a reasonable time based on the circumstances. The parties expressly excluded alleged Public Records Act violations from the arbitration.

Disciplinary letter was “vague and threatening”

In a May 24, 2024, award, arbitrator Sylvia P. Skratek found that a letter issued during an employee’s six-month paid leave violated the labor agreement’s just-cause protections.

The March 17, 2023, letter added an allegation without explaining when or how the conduct allegedly occurred, language Skratek described as “vague and threatening.”

The employee had a right to know what was being alleged, Skratek wrote, and the district’s letter jeopardized the fundamental fairness she was entitled to.

She ordered the letter and documents supporting the added allegation removed from all district files, and additional directive letters removed from the employee’s personnel file.

Skratek also found that the district properly placed the employee on leave and tried to move the investigation forward.

She faulted the outside investigator for the prolonged inquiry. The district’s account in the decision said the investigation found insufficient evidence of the underlying boundary-violation allegations.

Transfers, safety procedures and bargaining

In an August 15, 2023, award, Skratek found the district improperly delayed two paraeducators’ transfers and ordered compensation for any wages and benefits one employee lost because of the delay.

In her July 14, 2023, decision, Skratek found that the district had not adopted its formal school-based threat-assessment procedure when the incident occurred, although a policy and an assessment system were in place.

The district adopted the procedure before the ruling, providing the remedy the union requested. She rejected a claim that the district violated a school psychologist’s due-process rights by asking her to attend a meeting about alleged neglect of duty.

The release also included the July 11, 2026, office-staff reductions award the Herald reported on in July. 

Arbitrator Kenneth James Latsch found the district had not meaningfully bargained before removing bargaining-unit work.