My responses are based on Article 5 of the CUSD-CEA Agreement, and in this case, I'm looking at the definitions of sick leave on page 18, Personal Necessity Leave (PN) on page 19,  and Personal Business (also considered a PN reason) on page 20.  Please note:  Personal Necessity, including "Personal Business," are deducted from a teacher's annual allotment of seven days.  Each year's allotment of PN leave comes directly from the ten total days each school year that are given to each teacher as sick leave.  Sick leave and PN all come from one "pot."  

While sick leave accumulates from year-to-year, PN does not.  Example:  You have been teaching three years and have never been absent for illness or PN.  Therefore, you have a running balance of 30 days sick leave.  In your fourth year, you are given another allotment of ten days, bringing your balance to 40 days.  In November, you learn that you must help your mom with some pressing legal matters out of state, and you want to use your full balance of PN to do so.  Your total balance of available PN leave that year (and every year) would be seven days only.  The automated absence reporting system would not allow you to input any additional PN days if they exceed 7.   In addition, you would have to be careful to avoid asking for PN days next to a holiday, recess period or Staff Learning Day  (See section 5.2.3).  You can always call the Payroll Dept. ahead of time to check on your P.N. balance this year.

To answer your question about medical/dental appointment leave...  When medical and dental appointments are known ahead of time, the "Personal Business" section under 5.2 PN leave instructions usually apply.   Yet, whether or not these appointments are routine preventive/check-up procedures or appointments to take care of an illness or injury--should guide the reason code of either illness or P.N.  

An example:  A teacher has cancer and is receiving chemo treatments every three weeks.  He knows his treatment schedule and lets HR know ahead of time.  He could charge these absences to PN  "Personal Business," or he could give the reason code of "illness," because he is being treated for an on-going illness at these appointments.  Medical/dental appointments such as routine teeth cleaning appointments or receiving injections before travel would be charged to PN, because they are not treating an illness or injury.

Here is Ed. Code on this:

It's section 44981.

Any days of leave of absence for illness or injury allowed pursuant to Section 44978 may be used by the employee, at his or her election in cases of personal necessity. The governing board of each school district and each office of county superintendent of schools shall adopt rules and regulations requiring and prescribing the manner of proof of personal necessity for purposes of this section.

The employee shall not be required to secure advance permission for leave taken for any of the following reasons:

(1)Death or serious illness of a member of his or her immediate family.

(2)Accident, involving his or her person or property, or the person or property of a member of his or her immediate family.

No such accumulated leave in excess of seven (7) days may be used in any school year for the purposes enumerated in this section unless a maximum number of days in excess of seven (7) is specified for that purpose in an agreement between the exclusive bargaining representative and the district.

So bottom line is that the change from #5 in the absences reporting is to follow our contract.

I hope this long explanation has clarity for you.  If you have further questions, please feel free to ask.
Thanks,

Dave Villafana

Dear Members,

I am very impressed with how everyone acted on Wednesday. You were able to work professionally while reassuring your students that everything was going to be ok.  Even though this was a crisis we were able to utilize this opportunity to understand the importance of all the training that goes into disaster drills and lock downs. With this knowledge I hope that your sites can sit down and share out some of the concerns that this event brought about. I hope that you can also voice some of the positives that came through.  In a situation like this we need to understand that we are professional public employees. Being such we need to follow the commands of our administration. We need to make sure that we stay as long as we are needed and are released by the administration. This is what professional public employees are required to do as per the oath taken when hired.  This is what you did on Wednesday and I cannot tell you how proud I am to be a CUSD employee. I personally came back to Miller and helped with the dismissal of students to their parents. It is a good feeling knowing that we can do this!

Here is the PDF of the oath that you were asked to sign.

20111010131625.pdf

Dave Villafana

Action Alert

October 11, 2011

Contact Congress in Support of President Obama's American Jobs Act

Your help is needed immediately to secure the passage of the federal American Jobs Act proposed by President Barack Obama.

The measure will provide funds to California to protect the jobs of 37,000 teachers, certificated educators, and school support professionals. Nationally, the measure will provide $30 billion to protect the jobs of 280,000 teachers, while restoring K-14 and higher education programs.

The American Jobs Act would also provide $30 billion for public school and community college modernization -- with almost half being funneled into the schools that need it the most. The President's plan would modernize at least 35,000 public schools across the country, supporting new science labs, Internet-ready classrooms, and renovations at schools across the country, in rural and urban areas.

It is urgent that you contact your U.S. Senator and Congressperson immediately to urge them to support the measure.

To learn more about the Jobs bill, the following link:

        American Jobs Act

     To send a letter to your U.S. Senator and Member of Congress, click the following link to go directly to the NEA site.

Legislative Action Center

To call your U.S. Senators, use the following toll-free number set up by the AFL-CIO: Call 1-888-659-9401 now.