Berkeley public school teacher Mollie Blustein planned her pregnancy so that her daughter would arrive during summer break. But when the elementary school teacher went into premature labor and delivered her baby two weeks before the end of school, she faced another stress point: a potential pay cut. <\/p>\n
The majority of California\u2019s roughly 300,000 teachers have not had access to the state\u2019s paid leave program that most new parents in the private sector do. Instead, many local school districts deduct the cost of a substitute teacher from educators\u2019 pay during parental leave. Because her daughter arrived before the school year ended, Blustein used 10 of her accrued sick days \u2014 paid time off she wanted to bank for later. <\/p>\n
Now, California lawmakers have given public school and community college employees up to 14 weeks of paid pregnancy leave in the education bill accompanying the state\u2019s new budget<\/a>, after Gov. Gavin Newsom endorsed the provision<\/a> this year.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a reversal for Newsom in his final year in office. In 2019, the governor vetoed a bill<\/a> that would have given school employees at least six weeks of paid leave, and he did not publicly support<\/a> a similar Assembly bill that died on the Senate floor in 2024. Several political analysts said the issue appeals to voters on both sides of the aisle, ahead of Newsom\u2019s potential 2028 presidential run.<\/p>\n State Department of Finance spokesperson H.D. Palmer said in an email that \u201ceducator workforce recruitment and retention has been a priority for the administration since the governor\u2019s first day in office\u201d but that the funding was not previously available.<\/p>\n Paid leave policies for educators and other state workers have garnered bipartisan support in recent years, including in conservative-led states such as Alabama, Louisiana and Georgia, as well as blue states such as New Jersey, Washington and Oregon<\/a>, said Vicki Shabo, a senior fellow specializing in gender equity and paid leave at the think tank New America.<\/p>\n After the Supreme Court\u2019s 2022 Dobbs decision overturned the constitutional right to abortion, some conservative lawmakers in states that banned abortion embraced paid leave for public employees to signal support for babies after they were born, Shabo said. Many limited the benefit to state employees and framed it as a tool to recruit and retain them.<\/p>\n Elizabeth Gedmark, a vice president at A Better Balance, a nonprofit that advocates for workplace equality, said paid leave \u201cpolls incredibly well across all political lines, because everyone agrees that you shouldn\u2019t have to go back to work a day after you had a baby.\u201d<\/p>\n In 2019, President Trump signed into law a bill that gave federal workers 12 weeks<\/a> of paid leave. But Shabo said the current administration hasn\u2019t made any moves to expand paid leave.<\/p>\n Palmer, of the Department of Finance, said the state can now afford the roughly $218-million teacher leave program because of billions of dollars in unexpected tax revenue, largely from personal income taxes<\/a> tied to tech workers\u2019 stock options. Much of that revenue is constitutionally guaranteed to schools, so it can\u2019t cover other public workers who are also shut out of California\u2019s paid leave system.<\/p>\n Why teachers were shut out of paid leave<\/p>\n Many school district administrators have largely opposed paid leave in the past because of the cost. The state\u2019s plan calls for districts to pay for the leave out of their annual cost-of-living raise, which this year is bigger than the law requires.<\/p>\n David Roth, superintendent of Buckeye Union School District in El Dorado County, said that the math still isn\u2019t great for some schools, and that \u201cthe real value reaching the classroom is smaller than the headline number suggests.\u201d<\/p>\n The California Assn. of School Business Officials had opposed previous related legislation, saying it would create an \u201cunfunded mandate,\u201d but largely supports the new plan now that the start date has been pushed from July 1 to January 2027. <\/p>\n The proposal would close a gap that many Californians don\u2019t realize exists. The state was one of the first to offer paid family leave<\/a> \u2014 under its current program, eligible workers get up to 90%<\/a> of their pay for up to 20 weeks of combined leave and disability benefits.<\/p>\n But most California teachers, 72% of whom are women, are shut out. The program is funded through a payroll deduction for state disability insurance, and public agencies are exempt from it<\/a>. Districts can opt in, but the move must be bargained collectively, as recently happened in the Los Angeles Unified School District. School board members Tanya Ortiz Franklin, Kelly Gonez and Karla Griego \u2014 all of them moms \u2014 had introduced a resolution<\/a> supporting leave in 2025.<\/p>\n \u201cWe now have a school board that has five moms on it who have some experience being on school staff while having children,\u201d Gonez said. \u201cWe know that parenthood is joyful, but we also know the challenges it comes with in a very tangible way.\u201d<\/p>\n Most educators must use up their accrued sick days before receiving a fraction of their pay for the remainder of their leave, under a provision of the education code<\/a>.<\/p>\n Because of that, it\u2019s not uncommon for teachers to plan their pregnancy leave for summer breaks to try to avoid burning up their sick leave. But that can be difficult for those with pregnancy complications or early deliveries, like Blustein, or those who experience challenges getting pregnant.<\/p>\n Erika Jones, an elementary school teacher in Los Angeles and the secretary-treasurer of the California Teachers Assn., said her colleagues routinely teach until they go into labor, which can be disruptive.<\/p>\n It took one colleague about seven years to bank 77 sick days to use for a single pregnancy.<\/p>\n \u201cWomen go back sooner than they should have, because they don\u2019t have the days,\u201d Jones said. \u201cYou end up in this deficit zone.\u201d<\/p>\n