Representatives from the Crookston School Board and the Crookston Educators Association (CEA) met Wednesday afternoon to discuss clarifying language regarding family and medical leave policies for the catastrophic sick leave bank. Human Resources Director Wendy Ault said the meeting was productive, with some questions and concerns receiving clarification on both sides moving forward.
Ault says the catastrophic sick leave bank is a provision in the CEA contract that allows teachers to submit one of their allotted sick leave days each year to the sick leave bank, where those who are enrolled in the policy have access to sick leave hours in the event of a catastrophic medical situation to themselves or their families. The issues at hand during Wednesday’s meeting concerned required donation of sick leave to the bank annually to remain eligible, notification to union members about how much sick leave is available in the bank, and
“We have a catastrophic sick leave bank, and it is for our employees to take advantage of some leave hours if they need it for some sort of catastrophic medical illness for themselves or their families, but in order to be eligible for it, they have to contribute a day of their own sick leave,” says Ault. “So we just met with our educators’ union to talk about some contract language or policy language, the hours currently available, and the process and policies going forward to utilize that sick leave bank.”
The school board representatives said the next step is to send this clarifying language to a policy committee before a review by the full school board. Ault said both sides walked out with more information than they entered with and feel the policy will be much clearer and help prevent issues in the future.
Ault explained, “It was just a kind of come together meeting to talk about the ins and outs of the policy, how to use it, what information they want available to the folks in their union and all of our employees, and just making sure we’re all on the same page.”
The school board and CEA have another meet and confer scheduled for Wednesday, May 20 at 4:00 p.m. in the choir and orchestra room at Crookston High School.