MARBLEHEAD — Hundreds of educators participated in walk-ins at all of the district’s schools before the start of the work day to demand paid parental and family leave for all educators in the district on Thursday morning.
The walk-ins were part of a larger coordinated effort in which more than 5,000 educators across 11 North Shore school districts are participating throughout the week. All of those districts’ teachers unions, including Marblehead, are facing contract expirations this summer.
“This morning, our Marblehead educators are saying in one united voice that we are demanding paid parental leave,” Marblehead Education Association Co-President and Glover School third-grade teacher Sally Shevory said. “The current system in place is the same injustice I faced 20 years ago as a new parent and it is why more than 5,000 educators across the North Shore are banding together to solve this crucial problem.”
In 2018, the Commonwealth passed the Paid Family Medical Leave Act, which provided paid family leave for private-sector workers. However, it did not include municipal school employees.
In a statement, the MEA said that the “current broken system forces expecting families to navigate a convoluted system of planning child birth, cobbling together accrued sick leave, and resorting to using unpaid time to build their families.”
At the high school, roughly 40 educators gathered at the entrance to the school at the bottom of the hill before marching up to the school. Many wore red shirts that read, “IT’S NOT TRICKY TO SETTLE A FAIR CONTRACT.”
Educators also received honks of support from cars passing by while “We Are Family” blared from a nearby speaker.
In an interview, MEA Co-President Jonathan Heller explained that in the union’s current contract, educators may take up to eight weeks of parental leave. However, those educators must have enough sick days accumulated in order to take full advantage of that time.
“The issue with that is they return to work and they’ve exhausted all their sick days,” Heller said. “And now, they don’t have enough sick days left if they’re sick and they need to take care of themselves, or the fact that they have, potentially, a newborn at home or other children at home.”
The MEA is currently in contract negotiations with the School Committee regarding wages and working conditions for teachers, custodians, and other educational support professionals.
In its proposal, the union is calling for 12 weeks of paid parental leave.
“They don’t have the (sick) days when they return to be able to stay home and they have to choose,” Heller added. “No parent should have to choose between their family and their job.”
Village School special-education teacher Laura Geelen has been an educator in the district for eight years. Geelen said in a statement that as a new mother, she was forced to use the majority of her sick days in order to care for her newborn, as the district does not provide paid maternal leave.
“What happens when I am out of sick days and my daughter or family has appointments?” Geelen said. “It is imperative that we change our policies around maternity leave in order to create a more humane and fair contract for educators.”
In addition to calling for 12 weeks of paid parental leave, the MEA has also been demanding that the School Committee fully fund the school district for fiscal year 2025. After repeated pressure from the union at recent meetings, the committee will restore $1.5 million in the FY25 budget, though those restorations will not add up to a fully funded budget.
The MEA has repeatedly asked for open bargaining sessions, but the School Committee has declined each request. Heller said that the MEA will continue to ask at each future bargaining session.
