Long Island district- no pay for maternity/paternity leave?

has anyone heard of this? DH's district enacted a new measure that prevents anyone from getting paid during their leave.... How can this be legal? Doesn't FMLA obligate paid leave?

Message edited 9/5/2014 12:38:13 AM.

Re: Long Island district- no pay for maternity/paternity leave?

Fmla does not stipulate paid leave. It only guarantees your job is secure and you can continue your benefits during that time. In my district, you only get paid for the 6-8 weeks recovery period, and only then if you have the sick days in your bank. The rest of the 12 weeks or the rest of the school year should you take it, is completely unpaid. Fathers may take the 12 weeks for a child, but they do not get paid at all because they are not recovering from delivery and therefore not using sick days. In my district, dads do get a few personal days for the birth, but I am not sure how many.

Long Island district- no pay for maternity/paternity leave?

Gotcha... thanks for your response. I guess that some districts are different than others. I should have specified 6 weeks paid leave for natural birth or 8 for c-section, but now I'm thinking they only made this rule up for dads.
When I had my twins, he was the only dad who had ever taken paternity leave in his building- ever.
He put in a request this time because I am partially disabled. If he doesn't get paid, he won't be able to stay home with me.

Long Island district- no pay for maternity/paternity leave?

I do think it varies by district. If I remember correctly FMLA is 60 days right? Some districts count every day including vacation days and others do not. I was lucky and was able to go out the end of March with DD (2 weeks before my due date but with a doctor's note) and since there were less than 60 school days I was able to get paid through the end of the school year using my sick days. If there were more than 60 school days in the year I would have gone to unpaid leave and it would count as one of my 2 years of child care leave. I know a friend had her DD around the same time and april break counted toward her leave which stunk.

Long Island district- no pay for maternity/paternity leave?

It turns out DH was wrong, they didn't change anything.
In order to be approved for an FMLA leave with pay (ie taking care of a sick child or parent etc), you simply have to provide documentation, the board goes into a closed session, yay or nay, and brings it in front of the community in the minutes. It always has been like this, and they use your sick days to pay you.

2 years ago, when DDs were born 5 weeks early, he had met with his asst. sup. 2 months prior, and she said, "as we get closer to the due date, just write a letter stating yadda yadda".
I unexpectedly gave birth early, 3 days after hurricane Sandy (aka all hell broke loose) and the district had been closed until the day I gave birth, so they didn't even question him, and all he had to do was send an email saying, "be back whenever". He was paid for the FMLA leave.

He thought that the policy had changed when they asked for documentation this time, but they were just being by the book and early. thanks for the responses!

Message edited 9/12/2014 8:28:19 AM.