School Board Votes PWCS Teachers Can Keep Sick Leave Increase

Photo by Ashleigh Henegar

The Prince William County School Board voted Wednesday not to readjust sick leave hours accumulated by those employed before 2012.

As a result, PWCS school employees will keep the seven percent increase in sick leave they received in 2012 when their workday was lengthened to 7.5 hours even though the workday has since been returned to seven hours.

School board members called this the “do nothing plan,” because no recalculations nor changes were needed. As a result, no one lost any accumulated sick leave.

The vote was unanimous.

In May of 2012, the school board voted to increase the length of the teacher workday. Sick leave, which is measured in hours, was increased accordingly. This was done retroactively.

In July 2016, the new school board voted to return the employee workday to seven hours. The question arose – should sick leave be recalculated and 30 minutes eliminated for every seven hours of leave an employee had banked?

If so, should all days be recalculated or just those accumulated before the school day was lengthened? In one sense, Prince William educators felt they had earned those hours of leave by working longer days from 2012-2016.

According to David Cline, Associate Superintendent for Finance and Support Services for Prince William County Schools, the seven percent difference affects approximately 3,600 of employees, and has an estimated value of $4.6 million on the high end.

The estimate is high since leave is only redeemable at only 10 percent of the day’s worth per the employee’s salary and can only be cashed in when an employee leaves the district.

School board members supported the measure to sustain employee morale and support those employees who require the extra leave time due to prolonged illness.

Concerned the vote might go another way, Prince William Education Association President Riley O’Casey asked that school board delay its vote until the board receives further employee input.

She said there would be unintended consequences of taking away leave time that would both hurt employees and undermine employees trust in the current school board.

Chairman Ryan Sawyers said he whole-heartedly supports the measure to allow teachers to keep all of their sick leave. He said the changes were squarely the fault of two different school boards.

Sawyers also said while his board cannot always provide teachers an increase in compensation to the level of other schools in the D.C. metro region, this is something they could “proactively” do for their employees. Lastly, he said he wants educators to feel “welcome” within PWCS.

Gainesville school board member Alyson Satterwhite- though believing herself to be fiscally conservative- said she had been swayed to support the measure by the overwhelming number of emails she received from teachers, saying they require every hour of their sick leave.

“[I heard from] teachers who are expecting babies, teachers will long-term illnesses. I banked it because I need it,” she said. “After agonizing over this, I don’t see any option but for the school board to own this.”

Justin Wilk of the Potomac District said he would also be supporting the measure, and he pointed out that the school division might save money by offering a bigger pay out on sick leave so more teachers might choose to bank their days. At the very least, it could save on the cost of hiring substitutes.