(Iowa Capital Dispatch) A teaching assistant who was fired from an Iowa school district for allegedly showing a colleague photos on an OnlyFans site is not entitled to jobless benefits, a judge has ruled.
According to state records, full-time paraeducator Patricia Pike was fired by the Lewis Central Community School District in Pottawattamie County last fall after being accused of violating school policy on phone use and behavior that might affect the relationship between employees and students.
The district alleged that on Oct. 6, 2025, after students had been dismissed but prior to the end of the workday, Pike was using her personal cellphone inside a Lewis Central Middle School classroom. While using her phone, she allegedly pulled up nude photos of men on the subscription-based social media platform OnlyFans, which is commonly used to share adult content.
Pike allegedly showed some of the photos on the OnlyFans site to at least one of her coworkers. Another coworker reported the incident to the principal, Mandie Reynolds, who later met with Pike.
According to the district, when the two spoke, Pike admitted showing a coworker nude photos on her phone, adding, “I guess you just don’t know who you can trust,” and, “I could tell on others, but I am not going to do that.” She was fired by the district that same day, with the district citing a policy that prohibits the personal use of cellphones during the workday even after students are dismissed for the day.
The district subsequently challenged Pike’s application for unemployment benefits, which led to a recent hearing before Administrative Law Judge Elizabeth Johnson.
After hearing evidence in the case, Johnson ruled Pike committed job-related misconduct that disqualified her from collecting unemployment benefits.
Johnson noted that while Pike alleged others had engaged in similar conduct at the school, the district “cannot be expected to discipline employees for misconduct if it does not know about the misconduct,” and there was no indication the other incidents were reported to administrators.
“The employer presented credible testimony that (Pike) showed at least one coworker nude photos on her cellphone while at work,” Johnson stated in her ruling. “This was wholly inappropriate for the workplace, regardless of the presence of children. (She) was aware this was not an acceptable activity to be engaging in at work, and she acknowledged having received a prior warning for inappropriately using her cellphone for personal reasons while at work.”
Lewis Central School Board records indicate Pike’s departure from the district was reported to the public as a “resignation.”
Fired public employees and health care workers
Other Iowans whose unemployment cases were recently decided by an administrative law judge include:
— Allen Ryan, who was fired by Scott County where he worked as a full-time corrections officer in the county jail from Sept. 8, 2020, until he was fired on Dec. 23, 2025. On Nov. 16, 2025, he was working at the jail without realizing his body camera was activated and recording. After an inmate approached Ryan and asked for a pen, and he responded by providing a pencil of some kind that was not approved for inmate use. Footage from the body camera allegedly showed Ryan concealing the pencil inside a roll of toilet paper, which the inmate had not requested, handing it to the inmate and then directing the inmate to say something to the effect of, “F—, my bad,” if he was caught by others with the pencil.
A few days after Ryan’s superiors reviewed footage of the incident, they twice asked Ryan whether he had given a pencil to an inmate, and he allegedly denied it. He was then fired for providing an inmate with contraband and for being less than truthful when questioned about the matter. Administrative Law Judge Jennifer Beckman denied Ryan unemployment benefits, finding he had “knowingly placed both inmates and staff at risk of serious danger by giving contraband that could easily be made into a weapon to an inmate.”
— Rozelia Ayala, who was employed as a certified nursing assistant for the Care Initiatives chain of nursing homes from March 2025 until she was fired in last summer. Her employer alleged that on Aug. 20, 2025, Ayala was tasked with changing a soiled resident, making a resident’s bed, and passing meal trays for breakfast and lunch, but completed none of the tasks and was alleged to be sitting at a desk for an extended period of time and using her cellphone while clocked in.
An administrative law judge ruled she had been fired for disqualifying job-related misconduct, but later qualified for benefits through her subsequent employment with Grapetree Medical Staffing.
–Gaylene Gibson, who was employed as a restorative nurse at Bethany Lutheran Home in Council Bluffs from September 2023 until August 2025, when she was fired. On Aug.12, 2025, according to state records, Gibson was allegedly tasked with performing an overdue wound assessment on a resident. The next day, she was asked about the assessment because her description of the wound didn’t match her superiors’ observations. Gibson allegedly explained, according to the records, that she hadn’t performed the assessment the previous day and the medical record reflected an assessment from the previous week that she had entered late and then forgot to backdate.
According to her employer, Gibson had previously been warned about failing to perform timely wound assessments, failing to perform her duties, failing to update care plans, failing to complete skin checks each week, and failing to update records. She was recently denied unemployment benefits after an administrative law judge ruled she had committed substantial job-related misconduct.
–Blair Rosenbeck, who was employed by Henry County as a claims clerk and elections assistant in the county auditor’s office until he was fired in September 2025. The county alleged that on Sept. 4, 2025, the auditor gave Rosenbeck a letter outlining work-related weaknesses and errors on the part of Rosenbeck, with the expectation that he would show improvement, according to state records. Rosenbeck then drafted a response to the letter and shared it with friends in the county assessor’s office to solicit their input, according to state records.
The auditor fired Rosenbeck, arguing the assessor’s employees had no business being involved in the matter. Administrative Law Judge Blair Bennett ruled Rosenbeck qualified for jobless benefits, noting the auditor had not shown how Rosenbeck’s actions amounted to workplace misconduct.
