School conference and activities leave

This bill allows an employee of an employer to take no more than 16 hours of school conference and activities leave in a 12-month period. School conference and activities leave may be taken to attend school conferences or classroom activities relating to the employee's child that cannot be scheduled during nonworking hours or to observe and monitor the child care, preschool, or prekindergarten services or programming received by an employee's child, if that observation and monitoring cannot be scheduled during nonworking hours. School conference and activities leave, however, may not be taken for the purpose of accompanying an outing or field trip of a school or nonprofit organization.

An employee is not entitled to receive wages or salary while taking school conference and activities leave, but may substitute, for portions of that leave, other types of paid or unpaid leave provided by the employer, except that an employee may not substitute paid leave for that leave for attending a school conference or activity for less than one hour. An employee who intends to take leave to attend a school conference or activity must give the employer advance notice of the conference or activity and must make a reasonable effort to schedule the conference or activity, so that the conference or activity does not unduly disrupt the operations of the employer. When an employee returns from school conference and activities leave, the employer may require the employee to provide, in a reasonable and practicable manner, documentation from his or her child's school stating no more than that the employee was attending a school conference or classroom activity or was observing and monitoring child care, preschool, or prekindergarten services and programming during the period of that leave.

For purposes of the bill, "school" means a child care center licensed by the Department of Children and Families, a child care provider certified for funding by a county department of human services or social services, a child care program established or contracted for by a school board, a public or private preschool or prekindergarten, or a public or private school that provides an educational program for one or more grades between kindergarten and 12.