Los Angeles School Board Moms Push for Paid Parental Leave

Yahoo

2 days ago

Three moms on the L.A. Unified School Board have assembled a resolution to improve benefits for pregnant teachers and other district employees who don't qualify for California's state-paid family leave.
The board passed the resolution unanimously last month — and now the district is putting together a preliminary plan, with a deadline of February, 2026 to produce a package of new parental benefits.
Board Member Tanya Ortiz-Franklin, who represents LAUSD's District Seven, which includes neighborhoods such as South L.A., Watts and San Pedro, is the sponsor and a co-author of the resolution.
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She said it's about time the nation's second-largest district treats its workforce of more than 70,000 employees, including thousands of working moms like her, more fairly.
'Parents are spending the vast majority of their paycheck on rent and childcare, and a little bit left over for food and gas and other bills,' said Ortiz-Franklin, a former LAUSD teacher who has two young children. 'It's really affecting people's livelihood.'
The resolution, which was co-sponsored by board members Karla Griego and Kelly Gonez, includes provisions for the district to support family planning, pregnancy, parental leave and childcare.
The district is beginning with a demographic study to determine which employees have families, or are planning to, and identify areas of need. The study will also assess the costs of expanding leave for new parents.
The district has contracts with unions that govern pay and benefits for its employees and is currently negotiating a new contract with the city's teachers union, which is also pushing for better benefits for parents.
Ortiz-Franklin said new parents who work for L.A. Unified currently face an impossible choice: pay for childcare for their family or pay other household expenses. The cost of high-quality childcare in L.A., she said, exceeds the income of many LAUSD employees.
She said teachers and other LAUSD workers are ineligible for the state's disability insurance program, which offers partially paid leave of up to 16 weeks for new parents. Teachers and other LAUSD employees are exempt from the state's family leave programs because the district's benefits programs predated those of the state.
Often, Ortiz-Franklin said, district employees have to use their limited sick days to take parental leave, leading many teachers and other school staffers to time their pregnancies so they give birth during the summer months, when they are off anyway.
In addition to calling for leave for pregnant employees, the resolution also calls on LAUSD to:
Provide more access to reproductive healthcare, including fertility treatments.
Create dedicated spaces for lactation at all district schools and offices.
Help employees enroll their children in LAUSD schools near where they work.
LAUSD officials are now working on a plan to provide these new benefits, Ortiz Franklin said, with some of the new services coming online in the current school year.
Maya Suzuki Daniels, a teacher at San Pedro High School and a mother to a kindergartner and an infant, said the district needs to do more to support working parents like her.
Suzuki Daniels said she's spent up to $1,600 a month for childcare, putting financial stress on her family while she's trying to work full time and raise young children.
'I exhausted all of my sick time, and I now am paying for their child care through personal loans,' Daniels said, 'which I'm told is very typical and normal for a working teacher. That sucks.'