Decorah School Board denies paid adoption leave request

On Monday night the Decorah Community School Board denied a request from teacher Marcie Dodd to have a paid adoption leave of six weeks, roughly parallel to the paid maternity leaves that other teachers receive.

All teachers are eligible for 12 weeks of unpaid leave for either adoption, or natural childbirth under the FMLA (U.S. Department of Labor Family and Medical Leave Act ) guidelines. Part of that leave is also granted as paid medical leave for most district teachers. Adoptive parents, however, cannot make such a "medical" claim under the FMLA or the Decorah Community School policy that parallels the FMLA and does not take into consideration the special issues of adoptive parents related to bonding and other emotional issues.

FMLA does not preclude giving paid leaves, but the School District felt it would not be appropriate to engage in exceptions to its policy that dates back to 2009. The Dodd family, who will be adopting within the next month, acknowledged that the district may not have the legal obligation to grant a paid leave, but hoped that at least the district would be open to change the policy to provide more equity in the future.