GDCASUPPORT STAFF
GENERAL LEAVE
GDCAAbsence Leave
Earned Personal Leave Allowance
Support staff employees working eight (8) hours per day, twelve (12) months per year are granted eleven (11) days of personal leave allowance per year. The personal leave allowance for support staff employees with eleven (11) days of personal leave allowance will be allocated at the rate of point nine-two (.92) days per month at the conclusion of the month worked. The Superintendent has the ability to advance a maximum of five (5) days to any support staff member, but the District shall not advance more than five (5) days of any type of leave to an employee in any fiscal year. Any support staff member working eight (8) hours per day but less than twelve (12) months per year shall be entitled to the portion of personal leave allowance as defined by the table below.
Job Title Accrual Rate Personal Leave Personal Hours/Days Earned
12 Month Full Time .92 11 work days
School Office Supervisors .833 8.333 work days
School Nurses .833 8.333 work days
Registrars (8 hours) .833 8.333 work days
Student Transporters (8 hours) .833 8.333 work days
Media Assistants (10 months) .833 8.333 work days
Accts Receivable (10 months) .833 8.333 work days
Night Custodians (11 month) .804 9.64 work days
Cafeteria and Aides (40 hours) .7 7 work days
Student Transporters (30 hours) 2.0 hours 3.34 days
On an annual basis, the allocated personal leave allowance may not exceed one hundred (100) days. Allocated personal leave allowance days are nontransferable. Allocated personal leave allowance days are reimbursable as set forth in the section of this policy entitled "Payable Accrued Personal Leave Days." The Superintendent has the authority to advance a maximum of five (5) days to any support staff member, but the District shall not advance more than five (5) days of any type of leave to an employee in any fiscal year.
Personal leave allowance days may be used for any of the following reasons:
A. Family Medical Leave Act.
B. Sickness or disability.
C. Personal business leave.
D. Bereavement.
Prior approval must be given by the employee's supervisor to use personal leave days. When all allocated accrued personal leave days have been exhausted the employee must apply for an unpaid leave of absence. If a personal leave request is denied and the employee does not report to work, then the employee will be subject to disciplinary action, up to and including dismissal.
Prior approval must be given by the employee's administrator/principal for personal leave days immediately preceding or following a regularly scheduled school holiday.
Personal leave may be used for any of the reasons listed previously in this policy, but will not be allowed for activity or concerted conduct which interferes with or is disruptive of the educational program as adopted by the Governing Board, unprofessional conduct or disruptive activity unauthorized by statute, contrary to Arizona law or deemed by the Governing Board as detrimental to maintaining the quality and continuity of the educational process and needs of the District. Such activity includes, but is not limited to, a strike, work slow-down, work stoppage, sick-in, or any other effort to disrupt or interfere with the normal day-to-day functions of any school or the District. Engaging in such conduct shall be cause for immediate dismissal. When confronted with such disruptive conduct inimical to the continuation of the school program, the Board is obligated to continue the school program and may, at its option, discipline, permanently replace, or dismiss any or all persons engaging in such disruptive conduct.
Payable Accrued Personal
Leave Days
Employees who have reached the one hundred (100) day maximum during a particular year will be compensated for unused allocated accrued personal leave days for that year (but not to exceed ten [10] days) at the substitute rate of pay per day. The unused balance is to be calculated at one-fourth (1/4) the substitute rate of pay per day. These will be paid out at the end of each fiscal year.
Upon retirement or resignation from the District unused allocated personal leave days will be paid out based on years of service and satisfactory service.
Group I: Employees having completed five (5) consecutive years of service or more but less than ten (10) consecutive years of service who retire or resign from satisfactory service will receive compensation at the rate of fifty percent (50%) of the number of unused days times the daily rate paid a substitute teacher.
Formula: (.50 x Substitute Teacher Daily Rate x earned days unused)
Group II: Employees having completed ten (10) consecutive years of service or more but less than fifteen (15) consecutive years of service who retire or resign from satisfactory service will receive compensation at the rate of one hundred percent (100%) of the number of unused days times the daily rate paid a substitute teacher.
Formula: (1.0 x Substitute Teacher Daily Rate x earned days unused)
Group III: Employees having fifteen (15) or more consecutive years of service who retire or resign from satisfactory service will receive compensation at the rate of one hundred percent (100%) of the number of unused days times the daily rate paid a long-term substitute teacher or the employee's actual daily rate (whichever is lower).
Formula: (1.0 x Long Term Substitute Teacher Daily Rate or employee's actual daily rate (whichever is lower) x earned days unused)
Employees with ten (10) or more consecutive years of service who are planning to retire must notify the Governing Board prior to March 1st for the fiscal year at the end of which retirement will take place.
If an employee does not wish to return to their duties following childbirth, an extended leave of absence must be requested, consistent with existing District policy.
Upon request, the staff member shall inform the Superintendent of the following:
A. Purpose for which absence leave is being taken.
B. Expected date of return from absence leave.
C. Where the staff member may be contacted during the leave.
Any employee who can be shown to have willfully violated or misused the District's absence leave policy or misrepresented any statement or condition will be subject to discipline, which may include reprimand, suspension, and/or dismissal.
Use of Earned Paid
Sick Time
The purpose of this portion of the policy is to comply with the Fair Wages and Healthy Families Act.
Earned paid sick leave for District personnel is a designated amount of compensated leave that is to be granted to a staff member who, through personal or family illness, injury, or quarantine, is unable to perform the duties assigned.
Earned paid sick time shall be used for:
A. An employee's mental or physical illness, injury or health condition; an employee's need for medical diagnosis, care, or treatment of a mental or physical illness, injury or health condition; an employee's need for preventive medical care;
B. Care of a family member with a mental or physical illness, injury or health condition; care of a family member who needs medical diagnosis, care, or treatment of a mental or physical illness, injury or health condition; care of a family member who needs preventive medical care;
C. Reasons related to child care, domestic violence, sexual violence, abuse or stalking, and legal services as described in A.R.S. 23-373.
Earned paid sick time shall be provided upon the request of an employee. Such request may be made orally, in writing, by electronic means or the online system used for reporting absences (Employee Access). When possible, the request shall include the expected duration of the absence. The District reserves the right to deny the use of earned paid sick time if the employee fails to report the need for the use of the paid sick leave as required by this policy.
When the use of earned paid sick time is foreseeable, the employee shall make a good faith effort to provide notice via the online system used for reporting absences (Employee Access) of the need for such time to the District in advance of the use of the earned paid sick time and shall make a reasonable effort to schedule the use of earned paid sick time in a manner that does not unduly disrupt the operations of the District.
If the employee does not have earned time to request, personal leave may be used in lieu of earned sick time, if the employee has personal time available to them. If the employee has no personal leave, the employee would receive no compensation for time not on the job. An employee may request an unpaid leave.
The District will provide written procedures to the employee regarding how to provide notice of the need to use earned paid sick time. An employee that has not been provided a copy of the written procedures for providing such notice shall not be denied earned paid sick time based on non-compliance with such procedures.
The District will not require, as a condition of an employee's taking earned paid sick time, that the employee search for or find a replacement worker to cover the hours during which the employee is using earned paid sick time.
Earned paid sick time may be used in one-quarter (.25) hour increments.
For earned paid sick time of three (3) or more consecutive work days, the District may require reasonable documentation that the earned paid sick time has been used for a purpose covered by A, B, or C, above. Documentation signed by a health care professional indicating that earned paid sick time is necessary shall be considered reasonable documentation for purposes of this section.
As defined in statute (A.R.S. 23-371), "family member" means:
A. Regardless of age, a biological, adopted or foster child, stepchild or legal ward, a child of a domestic partner, a child to whom the employee stands in loco parentis, or an individual to whom the employee stood in loco parentis when the individual was a minor;
B. A biological, foster, stepparent or adoptive parent or legal guardian of an employee or an employee's spouse or domestic partner or a person who stood in loco parentis when the employee or employee's spouse or domestic partner was a minor child;
C. A person to whom the employee is legally married under the laws of any state, or a domestic partner of an employee as registered under the laws of any state or political subdivision;
D. A grandparent, grandchild or sibling (whether of a biological, foster, adoptive or step relationship) of the employee or the employee's spouse or domestic partner; or
E. Any other individual related by blood or affinity whose close association with the employee is the equivalent of a family relationship.
Notice:
A. The District shall give employees written notice of the following at the commencement of employment: employees are entitled to earned paid sick time and the amount of earned paid sick time, the terms of its use guaranteed in statute, that retaliation against employees who request or use earned paid sick time is prohibited, that each employee has the right to file a complaint if earned paid sick time as required by statute is denied by the District or the employee is subjected to retaliation for requesting or taking earned paid sick time, and the contact information for the commission where questions about rights and responsibilities can be answered.
B. The required notice shall be in English, Spanish, and any language that is deemed appropriate by the Industrial Commission of Arizona.
C. The amount of earned paid sick time available to the employee, the amount of earned paid sick time taken by the employee to date in the year and the amount of pay the employee has received as earned paid sick time shall be recorded in, or on an attachment to, the employee's regular paycheck.
Accrual:
A. Employees of the District shall accrue a minimum of one (1) hour of earned paid sick time for every thirty (30) hours worked, but employees shall not be entitled to accrue more than forty (40) hours of earned paid sick time per year, unless the District selects a higher limit. A "year" is defined as the twelve (12) month period beginning on July 1 of each fiscal year.
B. An employee may carry over to the following year a maximum of forty (40) hours of unused earned paid sick time. Carry over shall not affect accrual or use rights under the Act.
C. Employees who have reached the eighty (80) hour maximum for sick leave during a particular year will have the balance of hours that is over and above the eighty (80) hour mark paid to them at the current minimum wage at the beginning of the next school year when they return to work, if they don't have a personal leave plan. Those that have leave plans will roll their excess into their leave plan. The excess hours will be moved to personal leave plan at the beginning of the fiscal year if the employee is returning to the district.
D. Earned paid sick time shall begin to accrue at the commencement of employment.
E. Employees who are exempt from overtime requirements under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (29 United States Code section 213(A)(1)) will be assumed to work forty (40) hours in each work week for purposes of earned paid sick time accrual unless their normal work week is less than forty (40) hours, in which case earned paid sick time accrues based upon that normal work week.
F. If an employee is transferred, but remains employed by the District, the employee is entitled to all earned paid sick time accrued and is entitled to use all earned paid sick time as provided in this section.
G. When there is a separation from employment and the employee is rehired within nine (9) months of separation by the District, previously accrued earned paid sick time that had not been used shall be reinstated. Further, the employee shall be entitled to use accrued earned paid sick time and accrue additional earned paid sick time at the re-commencement of employment.
H. When a different District succeeds or takes the place of an existing District, all employees of the original District who remain employed by the successor District are entitled to all earned paid sick time they accrued when employed by the original District, and are entitled to use earned paid sick time previously accrued.
I. An employee will not be paid for any accrued earned paid sick time that has not been used upon the employee's termination, resignation, retirement or any other separation from employment.
Retaliation Prohibited
The District will not interfere with, restrain, or deny the exercise of, or attempt to exercise, any right protected in this policy or the Arizona Fair Wages and Healthy Families Act.
Retaliation or discriminate against an employee or former employee because the person has exercised protected rights is prohibited. Such rights include but are not limited to the right to request or use earned paid sick time pursuant to the statute; the right to file a complaint with the commission or courts or inform any person about the District's alleged violation; the right to participate in an investigation, hearing or proceeding or cooperate with or assist the commission in its investigations of alleged violations and the right to inform any person of his or her potential rights.
The District's earned paid sick policy will not count earned paid sick leave as an absence that may lead to or result in discipline, discharge, demotion, suspension, or any other adverse action.
Protections of this section will apply to any person who mistakenly but in good faith alleges violations of this policy or the applicable law.
Adopted: June 23, 2023
LEGAL REF.:
A.R.S.
15-187
15-502
23-363
23-364
23-371
23-372
23-373
23-374
23-375
CROSS REF.:
GDBA - Support Staff Salary