Important Lessons about School Visitation Leave
September 19, 2012
With Labor Day past us, the end of summer has arrived. Given the dismal state of baseball this year for the Cubs (hey, they’re rebuilding), I am more than ready to welcome fall and, along with it, scotch weather, and the almost inevitably disappointing Chicago Bears season. But for most people, the advent of fall carries with it the beginning of another season: the school year.
Besides being yet another annual reminder that you’re not getting any younger, each new school year presents the same type of activities as the one before it, such as field trips, parent-teacher conferences, etc. For employees with children, these activities can present a challenge: not all activities or conferences are scheduled during non-working hours, and if an employee works hours outside of the standard business day, the challenge can be even more acute. Affected employees are by no means a minority of the working population, either - 87.2% of families with children in 2011 had at least one employed parent, according to the latest figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the U.S. Department of Labor.
For employers, then, each school year brings the need for some employees to take time off from work to attend various school-related functions and activities. And while there is no federal law that requires employers to provide time off to employees so that those employees can attend to their children’s school activities, some states do have specific laws that require employers to provide this leave. In the employment law context, this type of leave is typically called “school visitation leave.”
And although not all states have provisions for allowing school visitation leave, there is a good chance you may have employees in a state that does. For example, Wisconsin does not have school visitation leave, but its neighboring states do, and many Wisconsin employers have employees and offices in those states.
School visitation leave laws follow a general pattern, typically addressing the maximum amount of leave that can be taken during any one year, whether such leave must be taken in minimum increments, what school activities qualify for the leave, and the notice and pay requirements for the leave. Yet within those general confines, states’ school visitation leave laws can vary greatly, such as in regards to their notice requirements and restrictions on leave.
In Illinois, for example, any employer that employs at least 50 individuals in Illinois must grant an employee up to 8 hours of leave during any school year, with no more than four hours to be taken on any single day. The leave can be used “to attend school conferences or classroom activities related to the employee’s child if the conference of classroom activities cannot be scheduled during non-work hours.” However, Illinois’ statute also requires that an employee exhaust all accrued vacation leave, personal leave, compensatory leave, and other leave (except sick leave and disability leave) prior to using leave under the school visitation statute. Further, employees must make a written request for the leave at least seven days in advance. Employees do not need to be compensated for school visitation leave, but employees cannot lose any benefits from exercising their right to school visitation leave.
Minnesota, on the other hand, allows up to 16 hours of leave during any 12-month period, and employees have more expansive rights than in Illinois to use the leave for activities related to children in child care or attending pre-kindergarten or special education programs. The other requirements of the statute are also less strict - only “reasonable notice” is required, and employees are not required to exhaust all other leave prior to exercising school visitation leave.
Nevada is different still, allowing only 4 hours of leave per school year to be taken in increments of at least one hour to attend various delineated school activities, including activities that take place during regular school hours. Nevada also expressly prohibits employers from taking adverse employment actions against employees because the employees utilize school visitation leave.
These three states are just a few of the states to have this leave. The other states are California, Colorado, Louisiana, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, and Vermont. The District of Columbia also has school visitation leave, and Utah and Arkansas “encourage” but do not require that employers provide such leave. Further, even though some states allow this leave to be unpaid, employers should be mindful of federal and state wage and hour laws regarding deductions of pay from exempt employees.
Of course, there is nothing preventing employers from granting school visitation leave to their employees even if it is not required by state law. This can be done either through an express policy or even through reference to a company’s paid time off policy.
