MONTEREY — The Highland County School Board is considering adopting a new policy for paid parental leave.
School board chair Jason Wilfong led the effort. Wilfong said the policy is the right thing to do for new parents.
“Working for the state and federal governments, parental leave has always been a benefit made available to myself and with having three children and another on the way, greatly appreciated,” Wilfong explained. Wilfong said he turned down some job options because they didn’t offer paid parental leave and he knew he and his wife were not done expanding their family.
Superintendent Dr. Drew Maerz reviewed the proposed policy at the April 11 school board meeting, and the policy will be open for public comment for a month. The draft can be read at www.highland.k12.va.us/documents/district/school-board/items-under-review/374232.
Hiring and retaining talented and qualified employees is another motivating factor in crafting this policy.
“In my work with the state, I often work with and see talented female graduates in the local governments who quickly leave once they begin planning and starting their families due to the lack of paid leave, so I began to think this may be an area where we can improve policy to attract and keep these individuals,” Wilfong said. “Recruitment and retention are continuously difficult areas for our school district.
“We already live in the best area of the state, but that comes with challenges that are at times hard to accept for young new teachers leaving college. We are remote, work for spouses is limited without commuting great distances, and housing is often limited as well,” Wilfong said. “The goal was to look at ways in which we can utilize policy solely under the discretion of the board, to retain and recruit talented staff.”
Wilfong said his own family expansion led him to examine the school’s policy, and he said he was left a bit disappointed with HCPS’s lack of a policy. “I began to look to see if any other school districts offered parental leave to see if HCPS were an outlier, but found that there were only two other districts that I could find that had a policy in effect,” he said. He said Maerz did some more digging and found a couple more districts are considering adopting parental leave policies.
“I crafted a draft policy based on the current state policy and presented it to the full board and superintendent to get a feel for their support,” Wilfong said of the process. “With a shared consensus, the superintendent expounded on the draft policy, found a less costly method to fund it, and after legal review, presented the current draft for public comment.”
“Highland County School Board provides its eligible employees with paid parental leave for a birthing parent to care for and bond with a newborn or preschool child newly placed for adoption or foster care. Highland County School Board also provides paid parental leave for the birth parent in the event of stillbirth,” reads the policy introduction.
The school’s policy will be available for eligible employees in conjunction with the Family Medical Leave Act and disability insurance. Employees eligible for FMLA must have been employed at least 12 months with Highland County Public Schools and have at least 1,250 hours of service with the division during the previous 12-month period.
Eligible birth parents may use up to a total of six weeks of paid parental leave during a rolling twelve-month period. The benefit may be used for activities related to the care and well-being of an employee’s newborn or adopted child, foster care placement, or medical recovery related to the birth of a child. Different situations have different rules for the paid parental leave as described in the policy.
“We as a board will continue to seek new and innovative ways to retain and recruit talented staff as a board and greatly appreciate those who currently serve our students,” Wilfong said.