Karli Myers had her son, Luke, in November, while working as a high school English teacher outside Tulsa, Okla. Her district didn’t offer parental leave, so she used sick leave to get more than two months at home with Luke – sick leave she spent years collecting, with a baby in mind.
“So we accrue 10 sick days a year, so I essentially never took a sick day in seven years of teaching to be able to account for all of this,” Myers said.
According to a survey by the National Council on Teacher Quality, less than one fifth of the nation’s largest school districts offer paid parental leave for teachers. And only a handful of states guarantee it, including Delaware, Oregon and Georgia.
