COVID-19 Reopening Employee Handbook
COVID-19 Prevention Plan for Safe Reopening of Valley Center-Pauma Schools 2020-21
Workers Compensation Information
Tuberculosis Testing Requirements
Frontline Education Absence Management Reporting Program (formerly AESOP)
Employee Union Contracts & Evaluation
Mandated Information & Employee Handbooks
Instructional Aides - Paraprofessional Requirements
Staff Absences Reasons
All employees are required to maintain good, regular attendance. However, on occasion, an employee may request one of the following short-term leaves as appropriate:
Illness/Medical
Family Care – Immediate family
Personal Leave – (4 days) Personal Use & (3 days) Personal Necessity (deducted from earned sick leave)
Children’s School Activities (Labor Code 230.8)
Workers Comp/Industrial Accident
Bereavement
Jury & Legal Proceeding Leave
Each of these types of leaves is for a specific purpose and is governed by the conditions in the employee contracts and contingent upon proper request and notice. Basic information about most benefits is available in the Employee Union Contracts and can be explained in greater detail, if necessary, by the Human Resources Department.
Sick Leave- Illness/Medical - Sick leave shall be utilized for personal illness, accident, quarantine, or disability/illness due to pregnancy which is medically necessary. Employees shall provide the District with as much advance notice as possible of such absences for purposes of securing possible substitutes, particularly in cases of predictable absences such as surgery, maternity, disability, etc.
Family Care – Immediate Family Illness - Each school year a unit member may use available accrued sick leave for the care of an immediate family illness. If an employee is going to use five (5) or more consecutive days of sick leave for immediate family care purposes, the District will need verification from a physician that the employee is the care provider for an immediate family member who is in need of extended care.
Personal Leave - Employees shall be entitled to use four (4) days of Personal Use and three (3) days of Personal Necessity. Personal leave is not to exceed a total of seven (7) days per year and is to be deducted from sick leave.
Acceptable reasons for the use of personal necessity leave, which should be entered under “Notes to Administrator,” include:
Death of a member of the employee’s immediate family when additional leave is required beyond that provided in the “Bereavement Leave” section 15.3.2 of this Article.
An accident or illness involving the employee or a member of the employee’s immediate family.
An accident involving the employee’s property or property of a member of the employee’s immediate family.
An employee’s appearance in any court or before any administrative tribunal as a litigant.
Fire, flood, or other immediate danger to the home of the employee.
Personal business of a serious nature, which the employee cannot disregard, including adoption, parental/guardian responsibilities.
Personal leave shall be defined as leave used for any personal reason without prior approval, except for cases when the leave will extend a holiday or vacation period, for which, advanced approval is required.
Children’s School Activities (Labor Code 230.8) - The employee shall utilize existing vacation, personal leave, or compensatory time off for purposes of the planned absence authorized by this section, unless otherwise provided by a collective bargaining agreement entered into before January 1, 1995, and in effect on that date. An employee also may utilize time off without pay for this purpose, to the extent made available by his or her employer, not to exceed 8 days each year.
Industrial Accident/Illness/Injury Leave - Employees shall be entitled to up to sixty (60) days of paid leave of absence for an industrial accident, illness, or injury incurred within the course and scope of employment; only one increment of said leave shall be granted for the same accident, illness, or injury. An employee who has sustained a job-related industrial accident, injury, or illness shall submit a written report of same to his/her immediate supervisor within one (1) work day of the accident or injury, or within one (1) workday of knowledge that an illness is an alleged industrial illness.
Bereavement Leave - Employees shall be entitled to three (3) days of paid leave to be utilized in instances of death of a member of the employee’s immediate family. If more than four hundred (400) miles of one-way travel is involved in the death of a member of the immediate family, as defined in Article 3, an additional two
(2) days of paid leave shall be granted. This leave shall not be deducted from an employee’s sick leave balance.
Jury Duty - An employee shall be granted a leave of absence for purposes of regularly called jury duty appearance as a witness in court (other than as a litigant) or to respond to an official order from another governmental jurisdiction for reasons not brought about through the connivance or misconduct of the employee.
Vacation Utilization- Classified Staff - Employees may request vacation utilization, which shall be honored only after prior supervisor approval. The employee and supervisor will work on a vacation plan for gradual reduction of excess vacation accumulation as needed and will be paid out any excess vacation leave at the end of the employee's work year per Article Section 9.2 above.
Exhaustion of All Paid Leave
Certificated- Upon exhaustion of all current and accumulated illness/injury leave credit, a unit member who continues to be absent shall receive the difference between his/her salary and the salary of a substitute (sub differential,) or the salary that would have been paid to a substitute, for a period of not more than 100 days (i.e. 5 months.) In order to qualify for this differential pay, a unit member shall first utilize all current and accumulated sick leave credit; differential pay shall begin on the day following the exhaustion of said credits.
Classified- Upon exhaustion of all accumulated sick leave credit, an employee who continues to be absent shall receive fifty percent (50%) of their regular pay for a period not to exceed five (5) continuous school months. In order to qualify for fifty percent (50%) pay, an employee shall first utilize all accumulated sick leave credit, and in no event shall days at fifty percent (50%) pay, when combined with days of sick leave utilization, exceed one hundred (100) days in any school year.
Upon exhaustion of all current and accumulated personal use, personal necessity, family care, and vacation leave credit, unpaid leaved may be granted at the discretion of the supervisor/district. Employee must obtain supervisor/district approval prior to the leave, and must provide the District with as much advance notice as possible of such absences for purposes of securing possible substitutes.
Quarter Hourly Leaves- Certificated Staff - Leaves shall be available for unit member usage for leaves of absence in one-quarter (1/4) hour increments on an infrequent basis and subject to prior approval.
However, said increments shall not be utilized in conjunction with an adjacent preparation period or lunch period without prior approval of a site administrator; if approved, all periods of absence will be deducted from the leave allocations contemplated herein. Supervisors retain the right not to approve these absences if unable to reasonably accommodate. For employees who are in differential status, payroll shall use the average of the teacher instructional hourly rate of pay and the hourly substitute rate of pay in calculating the differential factor.
California Paid Sick Leave Law (Senate Bill No. 616)
On October 4, 2023, Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill (SB) 616 (Gonzalez, D-Long Beach), which guarantees five paid sick days per year, expanding workers’ paid sick leave entitlements. When it comes to employee leave laws there is rarely a short answer, but in this case the answer is “yes,” it does apply to LEAs.
SB 616 amends the Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Families Act established by Assembly Bill 1522 (Gonzalez, Statutes of 2014), or “substitute sick leave” entitlement, which for LEAs applies to part-time and temporary substitute employees. Current law provides up to 24 hours or three days of paid sick leave, and substitutes can earn one hour of paid leave for every 30 hours worked. Remember, employees covered by collective bargaining agreements are exempt from this law, and SB 616 does not change this provision.
We highlight the significant revisions to Labor Code 246 below for your reference:
Employee is entitled to no less than 24 hours of accrued sick leave or paid time off by the 120th calendar day of employment or each calendar year, or in each 12-month period, and no less than 40 hours of accrued sick leave or paid time off by the 200th calendar day of employment or each calendar year, or in each 12-month period.
An employer may satisfy the accrual requirements by providing not less than 24 hours or three days of paid sick leave that is available to the employee to use by the completion of the employee’s 120th calendar day of employment, and no less than 40 hours or five days of paid sick leave that is available to the employee to use by the completion of the employee’s 200th calendar day of employment.
Employers may limit an employee’s use of accrued paid sick days to 40 hours or five days in each year of employment, calendar year, or 12-month period.
Aligned with the current law, the leave accrual requirements can be satisfied, and no accrual or carryover is required if the full amount of leave (five days or 40 hours of leave) is received at the beginning of each year of employment, calendar year, or 12-month period. SB 616 takes effect January 1, 2024. We recommend that human resources and the business office communicate about this important change and work to plan for the fiscal, instructional, and operational implications of this additional leave entitlement.
This is a link Senate Bill No. 616 to help answer questions we expect you may have
If you have further questions concerning the new entitlement to paid sick leave, please contact Cristina Jimenez, Human Resources Analyst, at extension 205 or via jimenez.cr@vcpusd.org.
Sick Leave Donation Program
The District acknowledges that there have been employees who have experienced
catastrophic events that causes them to be on medical leave for extended periods of
time. In some cases, the period of leave exceeds the employee’s accumulated sick
leave. All parties wish to establish a sick leave donation program to assist
employees who suffer from unforeseen events that prevent them from working
after their leave is exhausted.