Mrs. King's Reimbursement Story
by Deidre Stevens, Co-founder and Vice President
From Friends to Colleagues
You know that feeling when you chat with someone and can tell they're an amazing teacher?
Early on, I got that sense from talking with Aly King. We met in 2011--when we both had different last names--through our now-husbands and would talk shop over the years as we simultaneously began our careers teaching junior-high English in vastly different public school districts. I can’t remember a specific novel or little-known fact about teenagers we bonded over, but I remember a growing confidence, through informal conversations, that Aly loved what she did and did it extremely well.
Before we knew it, Aly and I were both living the dream, teaching Pre-AP English II at Friendswood High School. Aly King is a hardworking, detail-oriented and passionate teacher. She is a phenomenal teammate, organized, communicative, and efficient.
I was so excited to go from friends with similar interests to working together daily, planning instruction and sharing stories of whatever recent TikTok trend students were attempting in the hallways.
A Baby Changes Everything!
And then, shortly after Aly joined my team, we were both expecting our first children. My due date was in May and hers was in the early spring. Aly taught me all kinds of things about pregnancy, the teacher insurance system, and the vicious cycle of deducting mothers’ salaries for the time they spend bonding with vulnerable newborns and sick toddlers.
While Aly and I both prepared fastidiously to have our first children, based on slight differences in timing, she was docked thousands of dollars more than I was.
Her story, frustratingly enough, is much more common than mine:
“Unfortunately, there is not a lot of transparency surrounding maternity leave and benefits for teachers, and oftentimes, teachers don't learn about how their benefits will affect them until they are pregnant,” Aly writes.
Aly learned in July of 2023 that she was expecting a baby. Since our school’s open enrollment period is over the summer, her pregnancy was considered as a pre-existing condition, meaning that she was not allowed to make changes to the amount of short-term disability she signed up for even though she was only a few weeks along when making her selections for the 23-24 school year.
So, while she was informed her maternity leave would be unpaid, Aly, one of the most detail-oriented people I’ve ever worked with, was unable to plan on receiving much of a payout from short-term disability insurance. Her timing was just barely off.
“Add that financial hit to receiving thousands in medical bills, and you can see why many teachers do not see staying in the classroom as an option; we simply cannot afford to teach and have children.” --Aly King, FHS English teacher
How FMLA Works for Teachers . . . Kind Of
Years of coming to work sick and exposing students to whatever illnesses she had meant one month of fully paid leave.
Aly, like many teachers planning to have babies, listened to the advice of other women before her and saved her days. While FMLA protects workers from being fired for taking up to 12 weeks off for family medical leave, it does not mandate that any of the time off is paid. Unfortunately, for Texas teachers, not a single day is. Teachers are, however, able to bank their paid time off, or PTO, and use it in place of maternity leave to fill in the gap. Aly told me she had saved 20 days up when she had her first son.
This meant that for the first month, Aly did not have any disruptions in her pay schedule. However, for the remaining eight weeks of her maternity leave, she was faced with a choice of receiving a portion of her paycheck, which she would have to pay back to the district upon her return, or receiving no paycheck for the remainder of that time.
Aly’s salary was cut $11,000 short for just 8 weeks of unpaid leave.
The Impact of Unpaid Leave
I know for some people, this may not sound unreasonable because it would not be a huge portion of their earnings. However, when it comes to teachers’ salaries, the deductions, medical bills, and exorbitant cost of childcare quickly add up.
It is not unheard of for teachers to lose 40% – 50% of their take-home pay in the year they birth a child.
It is also common for teachers to have some percentage, though much smaller, of their pay deducted the year following the birth of a child if their kid is in daycare, where, people keep telling me, it is normal for a baby to catch every virus and cold under the sun before their delicate immune systems are developed.
For Aly King, these two years have overlapped. While she has run out of paid time off due to caring for her firstborn, she is now expecting her second son next school year! What is supposed to be an exciting time in a family's life has instead become a major source of stress for the Kings and many others in their situation.
We couldn't have said it better ourselves. Please donate to Parents for Public Education to help us reimburse incredible teachers like Aly King so they can continue caring for children in our community while, of course, giving the utmost care to their own children.
Reflecting on this, Aly says, “Maternity leave is not a luxury; it is a necessity. Teachers have a right to have children if they want them, and all mothers deserve precious (paid) time with their babies.”
Deidre Stevens, M.Ed. -- mother, educator, and co-founder
Deidre is a mother, educator, and co-founder of Parents for Public Education. You can read more about her on the Meet the Team Page, or reach out to her at deidre@parentsforpubliceducation.org.
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