An Administrator's Guide to California Private School Law

Chapter 8 – Leaves And Absences

Similarly, if the employee were disabled by the pregnancy for four weeks and by the birth for six weeks, the employee would be entitled to the following leaves:

Pre-birth Disability

Post-birth Disability

“Bonding”

FMLA and/or CFRA FMLA and/or CFRA

Health Care

FMLA

FMLA

CFRA

FMLA and/or PDL

FMLA and/or PDL

Job Protected

CFRA

4 Weeks

6 Weeks

2 Weeks

10 Weeks

If the employee is disabled by pregnancy for more than 12 weeks, when the FMLA leave is exhausted, the school will still have to provide the employee job protection and health benefits for up to four months under the PDL. However, because the CFRA does not cover pregnancy disability, under these circumstances, there would be a period of time where the employee is only using PDL, and not FMLA or CFRA leave. The employee would be entitled to the following leaves:

Continuing Post-Birth Disability

Pre-birth Disability

Post-birth Disability

“Bonding”

FMLA and/or PDL

FMLA and/or PDL FMLA and/or PDL

Health Care

PDL

CFRA

Job Protected FMLA and/or PDL

PDL

CFRA

10 Weeks

2 Weeks

12 Weeks

5 Weeks

If an employee has exhausted all of her FMLA and PDL leave and is still disabled by pregnancy, the school may be required to provide her additional unpaid leave as a reasonable accommodation under the ADA and FEHA. Alternatively, the school can start the employee’s CFRA leave despite the fact that she is still disabled by her pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions. 1190 c. Leave Is Permitted For Many Family Care Reasons As with the FMLA, leave to care for a family member under the CFRA includes both physical and psychological care, which encompasses providing psychological comfort, and arranging “third party” care for the child, parent, or spouse (including registered domestic partner). 1191 However, several cases have clarified that an employee’s leave must actually be to provide care for the parent, spouse, or child. The leave cannot simply be to accompany a person with a serious health condition. For example, in Stevens v. California Dept. of Corrections, 1192 the Court determined that an employee’s request for vacation time to spend with his ailing parents

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