Newsom Reverses on Long-Sought Paid Leave Benefit for Teachers in California

California Governor Gavin Newsom has endorsed up to fourteen weeks of paid pregnancy leave for the state's three hundred thousand public school teachers—a reversal from his earlier opposition. The policy was approved in the education bill accompanying the state's new budget, per KFF Health News. The gap this fills is real: elementary school teacher Mollie Blustein's premature labor two weeks before the school year ended meant she faced a pay cut instead of paid leave, since districts deduct substitute costs from educator salaries. Seventy-two percent of California's teachers are women, and the majority have been excluded from the state's paid leave program because public agencies are exempt from the payroll-funded system. The roughly two hundred eighteen million dollar program will launch January twenty twenty-seven, funded by unexpected tax revenue. The move reflects bipartisan momentum nationwide: paid leave for educators has recently been adopted in states ranging from Alabama and Louisiana to New Jersey, Washington, and Oregon.

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