School Activity Leave - Cal. Labor Code § 230.8

Covered Employers: Employers with 25 or more employees at the same location

Employee Eligibility: Employees who are parents, guardians, or custodial grandparents of children (including stepparents, foster parents, or employees standing in loco parentis to a child) in kindergarten through grade 12, or of children in a licensed day care facility, are entitled to take time off to participate in school/day care activities.

Entitlement: Time off may not exceed 40 hours each year or 8 hours in any calendar month. Leave may be taken for a ny activity sponsored, supervised, or approved by the school, school board, or child care facility is covered. Examples include attending parent-teacher conferences, classroom volunteering, attending open houses, or participating in field trips. Eligible employees may use this leave to find, enroll or re-enroll their children in a school or with a licensed child care provider.

The law also allows employees to take time off to address a “child care provider or school emergency"(meaning when a child cannot remain in a school or with a child care provider due to one of the following: (1) the school or child care provider has requested the child be picked up, or there is an attendance policy (excluding planned holidays) that prohibits the child from attending or requiring the child be picked up; (2) behavioral or discipline problems; (3) closure or unexpected unavailability of the school or child care provider, excluding planned holidays; or (4) a natural disaster, including but not limited to, fire, earthquake or flood). Employees are not limited to using 8 hours in any calendar month in the case of an emergency situation.

Certification Supporting Need for Leave: Reasonable notice of the planned absence must be given by the employee. If required by the employer, the employee must provide documentation from the school or licensed child care provider as proof that they engaged in child-related activities on a specific date and at a particular time.

Paid? Although employers must allow employees to take the leave, employees must use paid vacation, personal leave, or compensatory time off for the planned absence unless prohibited by a collective bargaining agreement that was entered into before January 1, 1995. Time off without pay may also be used to the extent it is available. The employee, not the employer, chooses from these available alternatives.

Benefits: Continue

Reinstatement: Employers are prohibited from discharging, threatening with discharge, demoting, suspending, or in any other manner discriminating in terms and conditions of employment an employee who exercises rights under this law.

Other Important Definitions/Requirements: If both parents are employed by the same employer at the same location, leave may be limited to the parent first giving notice of the need for leave. The other parent may take leave simultaneously for the same child only with the employer’s approval.

Relationship with Other Leave: N/A

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