Karli Myers had her son, Luke, in November, while working as a high school English teacher outside Tulsa, Okla. Her district didn’t offer parental leave, so she used sick leave to get more than two months at home with Luke – sick leave she spent years collecting, with a baby in mind.
“So we accrue 10 sick days a year, so I essentially never took a sick day in seven years of teaching to be able to account for all of this,” Myers said.
According to a survey by the National Council on Teacher Quality, less than one fifth of the nation’s largest school districts offer paid parental leave for teachers. And only a handful of states guarantee it, including Delaware, Oregon and Georgia.
In many places, that leaves a teacher who wants to have a baby with few options: take limited unpaid leave, save up sick leave, hope for colleagues to share their sick leave, pay for their own substitute teacher, or try to time the birth for summer break.
But timing a pregnancy isn’t an exact science. Jenni..
- Saturday, September 7, 2024