Maddie Sollecito teaches high school math in Babylon, on Long Island's South Shore, and she is due with her first child, a daughter, in November. When the Babylon Teachers Association ratified a new four-year contract at the end of last school year, it added 15 employer-paid school days of maternity, paternity and adoption leave, plus up to six more calendar weeks drawn from a member's own sick bank. "I'm feeling all the nerves as a first-time parent, so this is a huge relief," Sollecito told NYSUT United, the state union's member newspaper.

Rob Richardelli, the local's president, said the provision began with a single member's answer on an open-response survey about what the contract should improve. "It's something that is incredibly important to younger staff as a condition of employment," he said. The same contract counts in vitro fertilization appointments within the four hours members already receive for annual cancer screening.

Every week of that leave came from the bargaining table, and none of it from Albany. New York requires private employers to carry Paid Family Leave and short-term disability coverage, but school districts are public employers, and the state leaves both programs optional for them. A teacher's paid time with a newborn depends on three things: the district contract, the sick days she has banked, and federal rules that protect the job without paying for it.

What the State Leaves to Each District

The Workers' Compensation Board, which administers both programs, puts the distinction in one line: "Public employers, unlike private, may choose to provide Paid Family Leave and/or disability benefits coverage." A school district that wants in has to act through its governing body, obtain coverage and file an application for voluntary coverage with the board, according to the state's guidance for public employers.

For unionized teachers the route is narrower still. The same guidance says a public employer "may not opt-in for employees represented by a union without collectively bargaining with the union," and a negotiated plan has to be submitted to the board for approval. Once a bargaining unit has it, eligible members cannot opt out individually, although the union can later negotiate to end it.

The program itself is not small. In 2026, Paid Family Leave pays up to 12 weeks at 67 percent of a worker's average weekly wage, capped at a maximum weekly benefit of $1,228.53, and private-sector employees fund it through payroll deductions of 0.432 percent of gross wages, up to $411.91 a year. For a teacher earning $80,000, that is a deduction of roughly $346 a year against a weekly benefit of about $1,030 during leave, arithmetic that a bargaining committee can put on a single page.

A second state benefit sits on the same line. New York's 20 hours a year of paid prenatal leave, which took effect in January 2025 and can be used for prenatal appointments and fertility treatment, is described in the state's own FAQ as covering "all employees working for private-sector employers." The FAQ says nothing about public employers, so a teacher counting on those hours should look for them in the district contract or the employee handbook before assuming they exist.

The Federal Floor, and the Calendar Built for Schools

The protection most teachers do have is the federal Family and Medical Leave Act, which guarantees eligible employees up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave for the birth or placement of a child, with group health coverage maintained on the same terms. Eligibility usually requires a year with the employer and 1,250 hours worked in the prior 12 months, and the Labor Department's regulations make the hours test hard to use against a full-time teacher. Under 29 CFR 825.110, an employer "must be able to clearly demonstrate" that full-time teachers did not work 1,250 hours before it can deny them leave on that basis.

The regulations also contain a set of rules found nowhere else in the law, written for instructional employees of school districts, a category that covers classroom teachers, coaches, driving instructors and special education assistants such as sign language interpreters. These rules govern leave that runs close to the end of a semester, and they let a district hold a teacher out of the classroom longer than she planned.

Under 29 CFR 825.602, if leave begins more than five weeks before the end of a term, lasts at least three weeks, and would bring the teacher back during the final three weeks, the district may require her to stay out through the end of the term. If leave for a birth begins within five weeks of the term's end, lasts more than two weeks and would end during the last two, the same requirement can apply. Inside the final three weeks, any leave longer than five working days can be extended to the term's close. The regulation caps a school at two academic terms a year for these purposes.

A teacher due in early May, then, should map the dates against the district calendar before filing paperwork, because the extension is the district's option and not hers, and the extra weeks are typically unpaid unless the contract or her sick bank covers them. Babylon's contract handles the opposite problem. Holidays and summer do not count against the leave, so time can carry across a vacation. "For some, it will work out to a lot more than nine weeks because holidays and summer vacation do not count," Richardelli said, describing a baby born in the last week of school, where the member "can skip over summer and take the rest of their time in September."

What Pays While You Are Out

Without a contract provision or an opted-in Paid Family Leave plan, the paycheck during leave comes almost entirely from accumulated sick days. Sick leave language varies from contract to contract, with some districts allowing it only for the physical recovery from childbirth, usually with a physician's documentation, and others extending it to bonding time or to a non-birthing parent. The exact wording matters, so the first document to read is the leave article in your own contract, followed by any sick bank or sick leave donation provision that lets colleagues contribute days.

Newer teachers feel this gap most. A teacher in her second or third year may have banked only a few weeks of sick time, which is why the Babylon provision drew from members who were just being hired. "There are a lot of people my age or younger that are now getting hired, and there's a few of us that are pregnant," Sollecito said. Richardelli raised a related equity point, that veteran colleagues who never needed leave can carry sick days toward a payout at retirement, while a young parent spends hers in the first years on the job.

Probationary teachers should also understand how an extended absence interacts with the tenure clock, which runs on its own statutory rules and appointment dates. The Standard's earlier guide to the probationary period, notice deadlines and Jarema credit lays out those mechanics, and any question about a specific leave should go to the local union in writing before the leave begins.

Rights That Apply in Every New York School

Two protections cover teachers in every district regardless of contract. The federal Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, in force since June 2023, requires employers with 15 or more workers, public employers included, to provide reasonable accommodations for limitations related to pregnancy, childbirth and related conditions, and New York's Human Rights Law imposes a parallel duty. In a school, that can mean a modified duty schedule, a stool at the front of the room, or relief from lunch and bus duty.

The second protection matters on the day a teacher returns. Under Labor Law 206-c, New York employers must provide 30 minutes of paid break time to express breast milk, for up to three years after a child's birth. The state Labor Department's policy states that the law "applies to all public and private employers in New York State, regardless of the size or nature of their business." The space must be private, close to the work area, furnished with a chair and a flat surface, and it cannot be a restroom. Employers must hand employees the written policy at hiring, annually, and again when an employee returns from the birth of a child.

For a classroom teacher, the practical issue is coverage, since a 30-minute break during a period requires someone in the room. Asking the principal in writing, before the first day back, for a set schedule and a designated room turns a statutory right into a working arrangement, and it leaves a record if the schedule later breaks down.

Bringing Parental Leave to the Table

Babylon's contract shows a sequence that other locals can follow. The union surveyed members with an open question, a single response surfaced parental leave, and the negotiating committee treated it as a priority alongside salary. "Rob and the negotiating committee really took the time to hear everybody's concerns," Sollecito said. NYSUT locals on Long Island, in the North Country and in the Southern Tier described similar wins at the union's 2026 Representative Assembly, and the United Federation of Teachers won paid parental leave for New York City teachers in 2018.

For a local preparing its next round, the bargaining options run along a short menu. A unit can negotiate employer-paid days on top of sick leave, as Babylon did, or a sick bank that members fund together, or a Paid Family Leave plan funded through member payroll contributions under the state program. Each carries a different cost to the district and a different benefit to a 26-year-old in her second year, and the full menu becomes part of the conversation when a contract goes to mediation, a process The Standard explained in its guide to impasse under the Taylor Law.

Sollecito's daughter is due next month, and her leave will draw on the days her union bargained for and the sick days she has saved. A teacher with the same due date one district over may have the second without the first.