California school activities leave expansion starts January 1

by Cathleen S. Yonahara

California’s law allowing unpaid time off for employees to participate in their children’s school or daycare activities will be expanded effective January 1.

Current law requires employers with 25 or more employees to provide unpaid leave to employees who are a parent, guardian, or grandparent with custody of one or more children who are in kindergarten or grades 1 through 12 or are attending a licensed daycare facility. Employers must provide employees up to 40 hours of unpaid leave each year, not to exceed eight hours in a calendar month, to participate in school or daycare activities.

The new law expands the reasons for which employees can take leave to include (1) to find or enroll or reenroll their child in a school or with a licensed childcare provider and (2) to address a childcare provider or school emergency. “Childcare provider or school emergency” is broadly defined to mean that an employee’s child can’t remain in school or with a childcare provider because of one of the following reasons:

1. The school or childcare provider has requested that the child be picked up or has an attendance policy, excluding planned holidays, that prohibits the child from attending or requires the child to be picked up;
2. Behavioral or discipline problems;
3. The closure or unexpected unavailability of the school or childcare provider, excluding planned holidays; or
4. A natural disaster such as a fire, earthquake, or flood.

The new law also expands time-off protections to employees who are stepparents, are foster parents, or stand in loco parentis (in place of a parent). In addition, the bill eliminates the requirement that grandparents have custody to be covered. Further, the bill replaces the term licensed “child daycare facility” with the broader term licensed “childcare provider.”

California Employment Law Letter has provided extensive coverage of recent California legislative developments. For more information on new California laws, see the November 23, 2015, issue.

Cathleen S. Yonahara is an attorney with Freeland Cooper & Foreman LLP  in San Francisco. She can be reached at yonahara@freelandlaw.com.