Change in NC law will give more teachers up to 8 weeks of paid parental leave
North Carolina teachers will now be able to get up to two months of paid parental leave after they have a new child, even if they’ve recently switched school districts.
The state’s new law limiting abortions created a paid parental leave option for state employees, including those who work in public schools, the UNC System and the community college system.
But the original version of the law required school employees to work for the same school district for at least 12 months before they’re eligible for the leave.
After teachers complained, state lawmakers revised the requirement in the recently adopted state budget. Now school employees will be eligible as long as they’ve worked for the past 12 months for any public entity that offers the leave option.
“If the individual goes from one public school unit to another or goes from say DPI (state Department of Public Instruction) to a school system, then the service with the previous employer would count toward that,” Ryan Collins, assistant general counsel with the State Board of Education, said Wednesday.
“This reflects a change in the law as well as a lot of the feedback from the public, teachers who were concerned about losing this benefit because they had moved school districts.”
The state board approved the revised parental leave rules on Thursday. Collins said the new rules should hopefully go into effect Nov. 7.
Leave rules
Employees are entitled to up to eight weeks of paid parental leave after a baby is born and up to four weeks after adopting a child or becoming a foster parent.
Part-time workers will also be eligible for parental leave. The amount they get will be based on a pro-rated share of the hours they work compared to full-time employees.
Charter schools are not required to offer the parental leave. But unless they opt in, charter schools won’t be eligible for any of the $10 million the state is providing to schools to hire substitute teachers to cover when educators are on parental leave.
