Public school employees in North Carolina can now receive paid leave for miscarriages after the first trimester, or if a child is stillborn or dies immediately after birth.
State lawmakers enacted paid parental leave for school employees last year. Under the leave policy, a parent who gives birth receives four weeks of paid leave for recuperation. Either a birthing or non-birthing parent also receives four weeks for bonding time and to care for a child.
The paid parental leave took effect for school employees for the first time beginning last school year. It applies to the event of a birth, adoption or foster care placement.
At a state board of education meeting Wednesday, state education officials also clarified rules for taking paid leave in the event of a pregnancy loss. Before this policy clarification, those cases were left up to individual school districts and charter schools.
“North Carolina is one of the first states in the nation now to offer this type of leave for these medical exigencies, so just a point of celebration,” said Geoff Coltrane, senior education adviser to Governor Roy Cooper. “Our school systems will be some of the first school systems in the nation to offer this type of leave.”
If a fetus dies after the end of the 12th week of pregnancy, but before a completed birth, the pregnant employee will receive four weeks paid leave for physical and mental recuperation. If a child dies after a completed birth, either parent can receive the full parental leave they would receive for a live birth. If an employee gives birth as a surrogate or puts a child up for adoption, then that person will receive four weeks paid leave for recuperation.
These rules follow guidelines set by the North Carolina Office of State Human Resources.
State board Vice Chair Alan Duncan questioned how state officials arrived at the 12-week cutoff to receive paid leave for a miscarriage.
“There are pregnancies that end before 12 weeks that result in very significant both physical and and mental duress for the birthing parent,” Duncan said.
The Department of Public Instruction’s Assistant General Counsel Ryan Collins pointed to a fiscal analysis by the Office of State Human Resources.
“It does include a discussion to some extent of how they arrived at that number. Part of it included a cost comparison analysis looking at frequencies of miscarriages and stillbirth at different phases of pregnancy,” Collins explained.
The fiscal note shows that changing the threshold for leave to miscarriages after eight weeks would cost about three times as much, due to the higher frequency of miscarriages in the first trimester of pregnancy.
The updated leave policies apply to full-time employees of traditional public schools and participating charter schools. If someone is employed at a charter school that does not offer paid parental leave, that employee cannot qualify by being hired at a participating charter school or traditional public school after a pregnancy has begun.
