California Legislators Propose Paid Pregnancy Leave for Educators

A California collective of educators and lawmakers has introduced legislation that the coalition says “will fix a broken system for public school educators [in California] who go without any paid disability leave related to pregnancy.”

The group—which included California’s State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond and educators and members of the California Teachers Association—recently convened on the steps of the California State Capitol to announce the introduction of the Pregnancy Leave for Educators Act.

Authored by state Assembly Member Cecilia Aguiar-Curry and co-authored by members of California’s Legislative Women’s Caucus, the legislation would provide full pay for the state’s pregnant educators for a maximum of 14 weeks.

As a statement from the California Department of Education points out, educators in the state of California are excluded from pregnancy disability leave. This longstanding practice “disproportionately discriminates against women educators who are forced to deplete their leave balances to have children,” according to the statement, which noted that women earn, on average, almost $100,000 less in retirement than their male colleagues.

This legislation aims to help address “this massive gap in retirement for women educators and help retain educators during a historic educator shortage.”

Teachers must be able to afford to stay in the profession and start a family, said Thurmond, in the aforementioned statement, adding that providing paid pregnancy leave for California’s teachers will help the state “take an important step toward achieving gender equity in teacher pay, and we will also make critical strides toward retaining great teachers to address the staffing crisis in California’s classrooms,” said Thurmond, in a statement.

“The legislation that we announced … is an excellent step in providing greater support for our teachers and educators and, ultimately, the students of California.”

In the same statement, Erika Jones, a kindergarten teacher and the California Teachers Association’s secretary and treasurer, described it as “unfathomable” that new mothers recovering from pregnancy and birth while caring for a newborn would have to “consider whether or not we are going to get paid.”

Educators “devote their lives to their students,” Jones continued. “Yet, when it comes to their own families, they have to constantly sacrifice because of the lack of basic supports such as paid pregnancy leave. In a field that is primarily women, we need to do better. … The predominantly female workforce of our public schools deserves no less. This historic legislation will help build a stronger, better public school system that benefits all Californians.”