Ill teach must pay for own fill-in

A teacher in San Francisco is learning a painful lesson about California law.

The second-grade teacher, who is not being identified, must pay for her substitute while on medical leave for breast cancer. And parents at the Glen Park Elementary School are upset.

Parent Amanda Kahn Fried told KQED that the situation is “grossly unfair.”

“Can you imagine telling doctors they have to pay for their replacements?” Fried said. “It just doesn’t make sense. That’s not the employee’s responsibility — that’s the employer’s responsibility.”

The rule that the teacher must cover the cost of her substitute has been law for more than 40 years.

Teachers are allotted 10 sick days a year and are allowed to take medical leave after that for up to 100 days. For that entire time, the substitute’s wages are taken from the teacher’s paycheck.

“She’s an incredible teacher, and that’s not fair,” parent Elia Hernandez told local ABC station KABC. “That’s crazy!”

Another parent, Abby Hipps, said, “She’s wonderful. She’s a beautiful lovely great teacher. She’s one of the best teachers. It’s terrible.”

After medical leave, a person can use up to 85 days from a “catastrophic sick leave bank” donated by other teachers. The substitute pay is not taken out of those sick days, but the teacher will have already paid 100 plus days before they’re eligible to use the pooled days.

“We’d love to change it but we’re working under a public school system that’s been financially on starvation,” California Teachers Association president Eric Heins told KABC.

A GoFundMe campaign set up for the teacher raised $13,700 — enough to cover the cost of her substitute teacher through the end of the school year — before it stopped accepting donations because of increased stress she was experiencing from so much public attention.