\u201cObviously if I didn’t have those paychecks, I wouldn’t have been able to pay my mortgage or pay for groceries or anything like that. Put gas in my car to go to doctors\u2019 appointments,\u201d the music teacher said on a recent phone call, baby Margot cooing and spilling Cheerios in the background.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Teachers in her district can get paid for those 12 weeks if they\u2019ve accrued enough sick days, but as a career changer, Papa only had four weeks banked. Even before her unexpected C-section and health complications related to an autoimmune disorder, she knew that wouldn\u2019t be enough time.<\/p>\n\n\n
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There was one workaround, though: In Papa\u2019s district, teachers are allowed to donate up to five of their sick days to colleagues in need. A teacher at her school distributed a link \u2014 much like a GoFundMe page \u2014 and was ultimately able to raise the remaining 30-or-so days. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Without clear confirmation from HR on just how many paid days she had, she gave birth trusting that her colleagues’ donated ones would come through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Papa is one of many public school teachers forced to scrimp and save sick days, pay for their own substitute teachers, go without pay or perfectly time their pregnancies to align with summer break in order to care for their babies and recover. Many end up returning to the classroom before they\u2019re ready<\/a>, sometimes as early as three weeks<\/a> after giving birth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n While it is difficult to pin down an exact figure, as of 2022, 18% of the largest school districts in the country provided paid parental leave beyond sick days to public school teachers, according to a National Council on Teacher Quality report.<\/a> For those that do, the amount of leave offered varies widely, ranging from one day to five months, with most districts offering less than 31 days\u2014 all at varying levels of pay and with differing eligibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Most teachers receive an average of 10-14 sick days a year, according to NCTQ, and many districts require that they exhaust all their accumulated sick time before they can access paid leave. And some go even further: seven of the districts subtract the cost of a substitute from the teachers\u2019 paychecks during their time on leave, effectively getting them to pay for their own coverage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the share of state and local government workers in elementary and secondary schools<\/a> that have access to paid family leave is 28% \u2014 significantly higher than NCTQ\u2019s figure \u2014 though this includes all school-based occupations, including superintendents and principals. An internal 2019 survey conducted by the American Federation of Teachers of about 50 district contracts found that only about 10% offered dedicated paid parental leave. Most districts relied on a sick day accrual system that disadvantages younger teachers, who likely have the least banked time and the greatest need for parental leave, according to an AFT spokesperson. <\/p>\n\n\n\n “Teachers, for the most part, are women and mothers,” said Ashley Jochim, a freelance education researcher and consulting principal at Arizona State University\u2019s Center on Reinventing Public Education. “And so the fact that there is sort of an inattention to these issues around parent leave is startling.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the 2020-21 school year, there were 3.8 million<\/a> full- and part-time public school teachers, 77% of whom were women and a majority of whom were of childbearing age. About half \u2014 48% \u2014 of all public school teachers have children living at home, according to an analysis of data spanning 2012-16 by the Brookings Institution\u2019s Michael Hansen and Diana Quintero. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The National Council on Teacher Quality analyzed 148 school districts<\/a> in the U.S., including the 100 largest as well as the largest in each state, and found that 18% offered paid parental leave beyond sick days. Though a few of these districts fall in states that offer paid leave, the organization said it’s not confident that schools are necessarily following state policy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Of the analyzed districts, 27 offer paid leave for a birthing parent and 18 offer some amount to fathers or non-birthing parents. Eleven districts offer all days at full pay, while 15 offer partial pay. Thirteen districts provide some leave for adoption. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Teachers across the country, like Papa, know the struggles associated with these patchwork policies. But those outside the classroom are often surprised to learn the lengths to which teachers must go, according to various experts. There\u2019s a general understanding that though teacher pay may lag, the fringe benefits are often much more robust than what you\u2019d see in the private sector, leading to a misperception that paid parental leave is included, said Jochim. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cParental leave shouldn\u2019t feel like a miracle,\u201dwrote AFT President Randi Weingarten in a statement to The 74. \u201cIt should be a basic benefit that school districts and states offer to all employees.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n This system exists against the backdrop of a maternal health crisis<\/a>, particularly stark for mothers of color and worsened by the pandemic. Amid record high teacher turnover<\/a>, a shortage of substitute teachers,<\/a> and wide support<\/a> for paid parental leave policies nationally, experts note that family leave could be an important recruitment and retention tool\u2014 especially for female teachers of color, who are underrepresented in the field. About 79% of public school teachers are white, 9% are Hispanic and 7% are Black, according to the most recent U.S. Department of Education data.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.the74million.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/ShareOfPay.png\")
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