What kind of maternity leave does your school district offer?

[filmgirl7]

Hello All,
Just a quick question concerning teachers and maternity leave. I teach in a MS/HS and my district only offers the use of 20 sick days as maternity leave. They will hold your job for up to a year if you have tenure, but that's it. I'm just wondering, what kind of leave policy does your district have? (I'm trying to figure out if mine is better or worse than most.)

Thanks in advance,
filmgirl (TTC in '06)

[PookiePrincess]

I'm not absolutely certain about my district, but I'm pretty sure we get 6 weeks paid through disability. After that you can choose to take longer leave and not get paid for it. We had one teacher who was out last year for 12 weeks.

[UTChick]

With my district in Texas, you must first use any sick and/or personal days you have accumulated. My district is pretty strict on the disability. You have to have pretty specific documentation from the Dr. Even if you are out on disability, you have to pay $50 a day. If you can't use disability and you run out of sick and personal days, you have 25 hardship days but must pay $95 a day to be out. After that you are docked your daily pay rate, so you receive zero pay at that point. This is the reason why we waited until May to start TTC, hoping to get me as far to the end of the school year as possible. Since I am still not pg, I am starting to worry because I don't really want a to deal with being out during the fall.

[Decemberwed]

This will be the 2nd district I am in while pg (in Austin, TX) and both were the same. You must first use your accumulated sick days. Then you are docked your daily rate of pay for the duration of your leave. By law and FMLA you can take 12 weeks off (which I do). If you have signed up for disability insurance you can get paid for up to 12 weeks via that insurance company. Depending which plan you selected determines when it kicks in (mine does after 15 days) and they pay you a percentage of your salary (somewhere around 80%). So basically I will get paid regularly for 15 days of my sick leave and then receive 80% of my salary for the full 12 weeks I am off with Lily. When I had Ben I hadn't signed up for disability so I got docked for the time I was out.

[Southlooper]

Chicago Public Schools allows you to use your sick days. After you exhaust your sick days you may take up to 4 years per child unpaid.

[Asha]

my school only offers you pay if you use your sick days. this is why i hardly took sick days. now, that i left teaching, i can get paid for half of my accumulated sick days, and i didn't even have to get pregnant. i think that is a pretty sweet deal. ;) otherwise, i think you can take up to a year of unpaid leave. this is why many teachers try to plan babies during the summer bc they don't have to take unpaid leave.

[Sevilla]

My school (private) first has you use your accumulated sick days, then you get the rest of the semester off as unpaid leave, and also the option of the following semester off as unpaid leave as well.

i'm pretty happy with that overall, especially since their previous policy was just "use your sick days, then you get 6 weeks of unpaid leave and no more". Thankfully our administrator realized what a family-unfriendly policy that was and worked to change it.

[Ferris]

I only got 2 days of paternity leave (a man gets the same amount of time) and then I had to use my sick leave.

[ShannonGH]

With my district, I only get paid for whatever sick days I have built up. Standard time off is 6 wks but you can request 12 wks through FMLA or I believe the district will hold a job for you (not particularly the exact same position you held pre-baby) for up to one year. I have 4 wks of sick time built up so that's all I'll get paid for. Our district doesn't even offer voluntary short-term disability which is so IDIOTIC if you ask me! :mad:

Not only will I not get paid for a certain number of weeks, I'll also have to end up writing the district a check because, since I'm not getting paid, they will not have any money for my automatic withdrawls that come out every paycheck (teacher assoc. membership, tax savings plan, etc)

[scout]

We are allowed to use our sick days. We get nine days a year, and since this was my first year at my school, I got paid for nine days of maternity leave. I took the rest of the year off (six months) unpaid. They wouldn't have held my job if I wanted the full year off.

[DallasLady]

Like many said, you must first use your sick days. Then we get six weeks off minus $70 a day to pay for the sub. After that, we can take an additional six weeks at no pay. I am also in Texas.

[nuhmah]

I'm not absolutely certain about my district, but I'm pretty sure we get 6 weeks paid through disability. After that you can choose to take longer leave and not get paid for it. We had one teacher who was out last year for 12 weeks.

This is my district, too. A friend recently took her maternity leave a little differently - she took every Thursday and Friday off from September to December, and a sub (pre-arranged, and co-taught) came in and took her place on those days.

I thought it was a pretty cool deal - she also delivered in July, so her son was about 2 months when this went into affect. I am hoping to do something similar.

[jodylovesscotty]

I teach in Ohio and my maternity works like this:

You can take up to 12 weeks paid, but you get paid only if you have the sick days to cover it. If you don't then you don't get paid. We can also take up to 2 years unpaid family leave and still have your job back if you return.

[filmgirl7]

I teach in Ohio and my maternity works like this:

You can take up to 12 weeks paid, but you get paid only if you have the sick days to cover it. If you don't then you don't get paid. We can also take up to 2 years unpaid family leave and still have your job back if you return.

WOW! That's the best one I've heard of yet. Thanks for sharing! :)

[Natrat80]

Where I taught (in TX) we could use any saved up sick days and still be paid. When sick days run out then it's 6 weeks unpaid standard and you can do FMLA 12 weeks off and still have your job. I seriously doubt that my district would ever hold a job for you for more than a semester. We did have the option to sign up for disability insurance that pays 80% for 6 weeks. I had disability insurance and had my daughter in the summer....even though the school year was over I got paid from the disability (and still got my regular pay check since our salary is spread over 12 months). So basically I got paid to have my daughter! It worked out great for us! :D