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North Shore teachers are organizing for paid parental leave
These 11 North Shore school districts do not offer paid parental leave for teachers, which 5,000 teachers are "walking-in" this week to change.
Gloucester middle school teacher Brittany McGrail has saved up 24 sick days to have her first baby, which she thought would be enough for her to make it to summer vacation after her due date.
But McGrail, who is 35 and a half weeks pregnant, said it’s not quite going to plan.
“It’s looking like I’m gonna go early,” McGrail told Boston.com Wednesday, “so I right now will most likely be going to be taking at least a week unpaid, and then I am lucky enough that I will have the summer off with my child.”
McGrail is one of thousands of North Shore educators who are getting organized to demand paid parental leave. Right now, Gloucester Public Schools has no paid parental leave policy. Teachers can use their sick and personal days, or take up to a year of unpaid time off.
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Organized by the Massachusetts Teachers Association, unionized teachers in 11 districts across the North Shore are “walking-in” this week, demonstrating outside their workplace before heading inside together at the first bell.
McGrail and her colleagues at O’Maley Innovation Middle School in Gloucester held their “walk-in” Tuesday morning during drop-off, waving signs and engaging with families. With coffee and doughnuts, it was a celebratory atmosphere, she said.
“So many people don’t even know we don’t have maternity leave,” McGrail said. “Members of my own family weren’t aware that we did not have maternity leave.”
11 North Shore districts without any paid parental leave
More than 5,000 educators in school districts on the North Shore are “walking-in” this week to drum up public support for paid parental leave while teacher unions head to the bargaining table, the MTA said.
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Educators in the Beverly, Revere, Ipswich, Gloucester, Chelsea, Georgetown, Hamilton-Wenham, Masconomet Regional, Danvers, and Salem school districts don’t have any paid parental leave. They can take unpaid time off, but pregnant educators and educators expecting any additions to their families can only use sick or personal days for a so-called parental leave.
Teachers in those 11 districts are all currently bargaining for their next contracts.
In Massachusetts, all employers except municipalities are legally obligated to pay for 60 days of parental leave, which leaves teachers out. Paid parental leave was one of the major demands from the Newton Teachers Associations during their strike earlier this year. After 11 days on the picket line, teachers in the affluent Boston suburb won 40 days of fully paid parental leave.
Many of the districts are requesting 12 weeks paid parental leave, which could include expecting parents after birth, adoption, and fostering.
Allison Nichols teaches Spanish at Beverly Middle School and is expecting her second child in May. She’s been at the district for more than a decade, saving up sick and personal days to have a family.
“I find it pretty appalling and insulting honestly that we would be a profession that’s working with kids day in and day out, taking care of children in our own community,” Nichols said, “and then we’re not afforded that same privilege to have time off with our own new families.”
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Nichols said her middle school had a strong turn-out to their “walk-in” on Wednesday morning, which took place across the entire district.
“We were out on the street with bells and signs and a lot of honking. It was fun,” Nichols said. “A lot of people, and frankly, a lot of teachers don’t even know what the policy is.”
In Beverly, Nichols said management has not yet addressed the union’s parental leave asks at the bargaining table. The Beverly School Committee said in a statement that they can’t comment on negotiations.
“We hope to collectively reach terms that reflect our shared goal of putting children first, while respecting the tremendous effort, talent, and dedication of our teaching staff,” a spokesperson said, in part.
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