Recently, teachers and lawmakers gathered at the Capitol to support a new bill in California. The bill, AB 2901, aims to give public school employees up to 14 weeks of paid pregnancy leave. Erika Jones, a kindergarten teacher and new mother, joined the rally.
She pointed out that currently, teachers don’t have any paid pregnancy leave.
Authored by Assembly member Cecilia Aguiar-Curry and co-sponsored by the Legislative Women’s Caucus, the bill aims to tackle discrimination against women in the workforce. With 73% of educators in California being women, unpaid pregnancy leave hits them hard economically.
Assembly member Aguiar-Curry stressed that the law unfairly targets women and should have been addressed long ago if it affected a male-dominated profession.
State Treasurer Fiona Ma and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond also support the bill. Both come from teaching backgrounds and spoke in favor of it.
Before her pregnancy, Jones had to save sick days for a paid leave or rely on unpaid time off through FMLA. She strategically planned her pregnancy for the summer to minimize time off.
For Jones, especially as a Black woman working with communities of color, family planning barriers are even tougher. She highlighted the challenges faced by Black women during pregnancy and the added burden of lower pay for teachers of color.
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Jones emphasized that pregnancy leave should be a basic right, not a luxury. Currently, only nine states offer paid pregnancy leave for teachers.
The bill will undergo review by Assembly committees in this legislative session.
