Sick Leave Explainer
11/14/2023
Sick Leave Rights for Union Members 101
As SDEA members, we have protections beyond just having access to regular sick leave. This brief summary will help us understand our rights so that we can take care of ourselves when we are unable to work.
As union members, we are entitled to sick leave for personal illness, exposure to contagious disease, or temporary disability.
We have three basic types of sick leave that we have access to as union members. These three types are:
- Full-salary sick leave.
- Half-pay sick leave (also known as differential leave or differential pay).
- Catastrophic leave.
More information on these leaves can be found in Sections 10.2 and 10.22 in the union contract.
Full Salary Sick Leave
Full time educators earn 8 hours of sick leave for each month of work. Part-time educators earn sick leave proportional to their assignment (50% FTE earn 4 hours a month, etc.). Educators on 10 month contracts (even if you get paid over 12, but only work 10 months) get up to 10 sick days per work year (11 or 12 days if you are on an 11- or 12-month employment contract). Our union contract ensures that newly hired educators are able to receive advanced credit for sick leave that hasn’t yet been earned. Your days are granted to you up front, in advance of them being accrued. This means that you can use all 10 sick leave days from the first day of work in a work year, without having to wait a month or more to accrue the days. If you do so, you will see a negative balance in your bank, as the days are accrued, one per month of work, for the rest of the year, bringing you back to “0” in your account by the last month of work.
Half-Pay Sick Leave
In the event that we use all of our earned sick leave, we are then entitled up to 100 days of additional sick leave, paid at half our daily rate of pay, often referred to as “half-pay” sick leave (known as “Differential Pay” in the contract). We can access this leave once our full pay sick leave is exhausted. When combined with full pay sick leave, an educator can use no more than 110 days of combined full pay and half pay sick leave in a school year. For example, if you only have 10 days of full pay sick leave, you get 100 days of half pay sick leave. If you have 20 days of full pay sick leave (say you carried over 10 from a prior year), you can use 90 days of half pay, if you carried over 30 days of full pay sick leave, you can use 80 days of half pay sick leave, and so on.
While half-pay sick leave is an important right that was fought for and won by union power, it may leave us in a situation where we are struggling to make ends meet. This is why union-sponsored disability insurance is so important! Disability insurance replaces lost wages when we are on half-pay or unpaid leave, due to our own illness or injury. Educators are exempt from the state disability insurance (SDI) program, so we have to acquire this protection on our own. CTA has vetted a disability insurance provider, called “The Standard,” and there is an open enrollment period happening right now, which allows us to enroll without any prior health screening. This program replaces 80% of your salary while you are ailing or recovering from illness or injury (including disability related to pregnancy and childbirth!), for up to 2 years. If you are a dues-paying union member, sign up today!! If not, join SDEA now and then enroll.
Catastrophic Leave
Catastrophic leave is another contractual protection that allows us to access up to 40 days of full-salary leave, once a member runs out of full pay sick leave. See the overview of this leave in the last SDEA Union Notes.
Catastrophic Leave Bank Explainer
10/31/2023
In year’s past, SDEA union members had the foresight to win the right to a Catastrophic Leave Bank (CLB) in our contract. The purpose of the CLB is to create a bank of donated sick and vacation leave days which may be used by unit members suffering from a catastrophic illness or injury. Catastrophic illness or injury is defined to mean a severe, incapacitating illness or injury which is expected to continue for an extended period of time which prevents the unit member from performing their duties. SDEA members donate one sick day or vacation day (ECE employees get vacation days since they are year-round employees) in order to become members of the bank, and are eligible to use up to 40 sick leave days to extend their paid sick leave period. Once a member of the CLB, the district then deducts one sick day automatically from each participating CLB’s members’ bank of accrued sick leave once every three years. You can donate days and become members of the CLB at any time, but in order to stop deductions, you must notify HR during the district’s health benefits open enrollment period, which happens in late fall of each school year.
To donate sick leave or vacation leave, the unit member must have a sick leave accrual equal to at least the minimum number of hours they wish to donate to the CLB. The union member acknowledges that the donation is irrevocable. The union member acknowledges that a donation to the CLB will be a general donation and may not be designated for the use of any specific participant.
In order to be able to withdraw from the CLB, the union member must have exhausted all fully paid leave (full pay sick leave or vacation leave), have donated one day during the last donation period, and have been a member of the bank for at least 90 calendar days prior to the request for leave. The withdrawal process requires the employee to submit a form (found here on the SDUSD HR web page) to HR along with a doctor’s note from a physician licensed to practice in CA, and the request must be approved by HR. Applications are processed on a first come, first served basis, and approval is given in up to 20 work day chunks. Once 20 days are over, the member can request an additional 20 days, for a total of 40 days per illness or injury within a school year. Anyone who has gotten catastrophic leave in any year will not be approved for additional catastrophic leave in a subsequent school year until all pending applications have been processed for that school year. Days granted, but not used, are returned to the bank. Anyone getting Workers’ Compensation will not be given catastrophic leave until Workers’ Compensation leave benefits are first exhausted.
A union member whose application for paid catastrophic sick leave is denied, may request that the decision be reviewed by the Contract Administration Committee (CAC), which is a joint SDEA and SDUSD committee, established by the contract to review certain contract language and procedures. It meets on a monthly basis. The CAC shall ensure that all information contained in the review remains confidential and that the provisions of the contract were appropriately applied in evaluating the unit member’s application. The CAC’s decision shall be final and binding. Denials of CLB requests by HR or CAC are not subject to the grievance procedure. More information can be found in Section 10.22 of the union contract.
Is Your School Using Your Class Size Reduction Teacher Correctly?
You may remember that the union contract that you voted on this summer required SDUSD to hire 86 elementary teachers “for the purpose of reducing elementary class sizes.” But reps at some schools are reporting that additional educators are not being utilized to reduce class size. Instead, the District and site admin are assigning them to do push-in/pull-out work, and possibly substitute for teachers who are absent. None of those things reduce class size, so that’s not in line with what we’ve agreed to.
If your site received a new, extra teacher this year (over and above the number the school has for regular allocation), that new, extra teacher should be used to reduce elementary class size. (If that’s already happening, that’s just what the union contract says -- great!) Note: You might have an extra educator that is providing reading intervention with the TK-2 Literacy Acceleration Plan.
What Reps can do now if your principal isn’t using the extra teacher to reduce class size
- Know that we have to act quickly. The longer that we wait, the more resistance there will be to reorganizing to reduce class size.
- Talk to the new, extra teacher. Find out what they are assigned to do. Tell them the union contract says that they are supposed to be used to reduce elementary class size, and it’s not their fault that the District didn’t follow the contract -- but we need to fix it.
- Reply to this email to let me know if your school is having this problem.
- Have a mini-20 minute Zoom union meeting about elementary class size. Here’s what you probably want to cover:
- The new union contract says that the new, extra teacher is supposed to be used to reduce elementary class size.
- What’s happening instead
- Discussion: Can we organize a representative group of teachers to join reps in an online meeting with the principal to call for the union contract to be honored and class size reduced by X specific date.
- If the principal says no, we don’t have to back down. We can: file a formal grievance, get more teachers involved, get parents involved.
In Solidarity,Kisha Borden
SDEA President
SDEA WINS NEW AGREEMENT
Tentative Agreement Reached on Wages, Staffing, and Special Education
Tentative Agreements Achieve Goals Set by Thousands of SDEA Members Through Bargaining Input Sessions and Will Result in Significant Investment in Teaching and Learning Conditions for 2021-2022 and Beyond
Our SDEA Bargaining Platform laid out a clear path to improving the conditions of teaching and learning by calling on SDUSD to direct considerable resources to our classrooms where they are needed most. As we returned to the bargaining table at the end of this school year, your bargaining team worked hard to transform the SDEA bargaining platform into a reality beginning this fall. These improvements serve as a major down payment on larger and long term improvements we can make once we return to the bargaining table next school year and as we organize with educators across the state to demand permanent public education funding increases.
These tentative agreements were won because we have all worked hard to build a strong union with active members at every site and program, and will result in meaningful improvements to our schools and classrooms starting this fall.
Below you will find highlights of what we’ve won as well as the full tentative agreements.
Please take the time to carefully review this update and stay tuned for announcements on upcoming informational meetings as well as the timeline and process for our ratification vote.
TA Highlights:
Tentative Agreements
Note: All new language contained in Articles 7, 12, 13, 29 & 36 is bolded and underlined. Language removed is struck.
- Article 7: Wages (6/24/2021)
- Article 12: Transfer (6/21/2021)
- Article 13: Class Size (6/24/2021)
- Article 29: Special Education (6/24/2021)
- Article 36: Effect of the Agreement (6/24/2021)
- New Hire Incentive (6/24/2021)
- Virtual Academy (6/21/2021)
- Safety (6/17/2021)
Summary of Next Steps and Ratification Process
Information sessions for SDEA ARs and CRs are being scheduled for next week so that each site and program will have the opportunity to hold a virtual informational meeting prior to ratification. Please reserve questions until those materials are sent out and your AR has had the opportunity to attend an informational meeting. There is a lot of information in this package of agreements and we will have the time to go through it all together.
For sites that do not have a union representative and for members who are unable to attend their site/program meeting, there will be an informational webinar scheduled prior to our ratification vote. Voting will take place July 9 through July 16.
Together We Are Stronger!
SDEA Bargaining Team: Kyle Weinberg, Ed. Specialist/History Teacher/SDEA Vice President, Teri Ang, Drama Teacher, Mann MS; Rickeena Boyd-Kamei, Home/Hospital Teacher; Stacy Hernandez, 2nd Grade Teacher, Dailard El.; Sarah Darr, SLP, Millennial Tech MS & Scripps Ranch HS; Jared Enyart, Education Specialist, Mission Bay HS; Mary Gantz, Nurse; Eri Nall, Counselor; Ron Reese, Math Teacher, Henry HS; plus SDEA staff Abdul Sayid, Executive Director, and Sara Holerud and Jonathon Mello, SDEA Organizers
SDEA President Kisha Borden's End of Year Video Message
Kisha would like to share some concluding thoughts with the entire SDEA membership.
SDEA Board of Directors Calls on State and Federal Governments to Release Funds to Support the Most Vulnerable Students and Families During the Covid-19 Crisis
On March 20th, the SDEA BOE voted to support common-sense measures to support the most vulnerable in our communities. See the resolution here.
SDEA Reaches Agreement Protecting Educator Pay During School Closure
Today, SDEA leadership and staff reached an agreement to protect educators' pay during the closure due to COVID-19. The agreement achieves the following protections for union members:
1. All SDEA bargaining unit members shall receive full pay and benefits for the duration of the closure and will not be charged sick leave or docked pay during the period.
2. Visiting Teachers shall be paid for all confirmed assignments they had prior to the closure.
3. Visiting Teachers who did not have confirmed assignments shall be paid based on their average number of workdays prior to the closure.
4. SDEA and SDUSD will continue negotiations to ensure that Visiting Teachers have continued employment opportunities should the district move to Distance Learning.
5. Visiting Teachers are able to access the "alternative paid sick leave absence" program in the event they used sick leave prior to the closure due to COVID-19.
6. SDEA and SDUSD will continue negotiations regarding the impact of COVID-19 on transfers and Distance Learning.
Read the signed MOU here.
This crisis is showing the absolute importance of having a union and a strong public sector. SDEA, in partnership with SDUSD, is working to ensure our educators, students and communities have what they need throughout this time of crisis. SDEA members will continue to stand strong and be there for one another, our students and our communities. Look out for future updates!
In Solidarity,
Kisha
COVID-19 Info
Please see this page for updates regarding COVID-19. Please also visit the SDUSD page for more information as well.
MOU on Catastrophic Leave
Members will have the opportunity to vote on whether or not to approve the newly negotiated MOU on the Catastrophic Leave Bank between 12:01am, January 21st, and 5pm, January 25th. Click here to see the actual language of the negotiated changes, including a summary of those changes, and here for more information about why changes were necessary to the bank.