Judge denies injunction in Palmerton principal case

No relief is coming from Carbon County Court in a suspended Palmerton Area High School principal’s preliminary injunction filing over a locked door at her January dismissal hearing.

In a May 9 opinion, President Judge Roger Nanovic ruled that he currently has no jurisdiction over legal issues with Paula Husar’s dismissal hearing conducted under Pennsylvania School Code.

“If there are irregularities in the conduct of that hearing, it is incumbent upon the parties to protect the record and to bring those irregularities to the attention of the hearing officer,” Nanovic wrote in an opinion issued one day after attorneys for both Husar and Palmerton Area School District appeared in court for oral arguments.

“If the hearing officer errs in failing to appropriately rule upon or remedy such errors, the aggravated party has the right to appeal the issue to the state Secretary of Education, and beyond to the Commonwealth Court.”

Husar filed her lawsuit after the door providing access to the Palmerton Area School District administrative building was locked following the start of a Jan. 31 dismissal hearing.

At the hearing last week, Palmerton Superintendent Scot Engler testified he made the request for the door to be locked due to security concerns at a previous hearing on a suspension for Husar during the summer of 2017. Husar alleged, however, that the locked door violated her right to a public hearing.

Suspended without pay since she was escorted out of the high school by district administrators in September, Husar opted for a public hearing in front of the school board after Engler recommended her dismissal based on more than 20 charges.

When the Jan. 31 meeting concluded, the hearing was scheduled to continue Feb. 21, which is when Husar’s attorney Mark Bufalino raised the locked door issue with hearing officer Robert Yurchak.

Yurchak gave Bufalino 10 days to submit a legal brief with his position and then afforded the district 10 days to respond. Bufalino submitted his legal brief to Yurchak on March 2, one day after he filed the county lawsuit.

Bufalino told Nanovic that Yurichak sent an email stating he would not move forward with the dismissal hearing until the preliminary injunction filing was resolved.

In addition to petitioning for a mandamus order, Husar, in her county lawsuit, alleges the district violated the state’s Sunshine Act.

“The court can’t find a case addressing this precise issue,” Nanovic wrote in his ruling. “It is only ‘official action and deliberations by a quorum of the members of an agency which are required under the Sunshine Act to take place at a meeting open to the public, subject to enumerated exceptions. The evidence presented at the preliminary injunction hearing failed to disclose or identify any official action or deliberations which occurred at the Jan. 31 dismissal hearing.”