Paid Parental Leave

Trinity School of Durham and Chapel Hill provides up to 10 days of paid parental leave to employees following the birth of an employee’s child or the placement of a child with an employee in connection with adoption or foster care. The purpose of paid parental leave is to enable the employee to care for and bond with a newborn or a newly adopted or newly placed child. This policy runs concurrently with FMLA leave, as applicable.

Eligible employees must meet the following criteria:

• The employee must have been employed by Trinity School for at least 12 months (the 12 months do not need to be consecutive).

• The employee must have worked at least 1,250 hours during the 12 consecutive months immediately preceding the date the leave would begin.

In addition, employees must meet one of the following criteria:

• The employee must have given birth to a child; or

• The employee must be the spouse of a woman who has given birth to a child; or

• The employee must have adopted a child or had a foster child placed with him/her (in either case, the child must be age 17 or younger). The adoption of a new spouse’s child is excluded from this policy.

As is the case with all school policies, Trinity School has the exclusive right to interpret this policy.

Duration

Eligible employees will receive a maximum of 10 days of paid parental leave per birth, adoption, or placement of a child/children. The fact that a multiple birth, adoption, or placement occurs (e.g., the birth of twins or adoption of siblings) does not increase the 10-day total amount of paid parental leave granted for that event. In no case will an employee receive more than 10 days of paid parental leave in a rolling 12-month period, regardless of whether more than one birth, adoption, or foster care placement event occurs within that 12-month time frame. 

Parental leave is compensated at 100 percent of the employee’s regular, straight-time weekly pay rate, to be paid on the regularly scheduled pay dates[LH1] .

Approved paid parental leave may be taken at any time during the 30-calendar-day period immediately following the birth, adoption, or placement of a child/children. Paid parental leave may not be used or extended beyond this 30-calendar-day time frame. 

Upon termination of an individual’s employment, the employee will not be paid for any unused paid parental leave for which they were eligible.

Coordination with Other Policies

Paid parental leave taken under this policy will run concurrently with leave under the FMLA; thus, any leave taken under the paid parental leave policy that falls under the definition of circumstances qualifying for leave due to the birth or placement of a child due to adoption or foster care will be counted toward the 12 weeks of available FMLA leave per 12-month period. All other requirements and provisions under the FMLA will apply. In no case will the total amount of leave—whether paid or unpaid—granted to the employee under the FMLA exceed 12 weeks during the 12-month FMLA period. Please refer to the FMLA Leave section above for further guidance.

After paid parental leave is exhausted, the balance of FMLA leave (if applicable) will be compensated through the employee’s accrued personal time off (PTO). Upon exhaustion of the employee’s PTO, any remaining leave will be unpaid leave. Please refer to the FMLA Leave section above for further guidance.

Trinity School will maintain all benefits for employees during the paid parental leave period just as if they were taking any other school paid leave.

If a school holiday occurs while the employee is on paid parental leave, that day will be charged to holiday pay; however, such holiday pay will not extend the total paid parental leave entitlement.

An employee who takes paid parental leave that does not qualify for FMLA leave will be afforded the same level of job protection for the period of time that the employee is on paid parental leave as if the employee were on FMLA-qualifying leave.

Requests for Paid Parental Leave

Employees must provide their supervisor and the Human Resources office with notice of the request for paid parental leave at least 30 days prior to the proposed date of the leave or, if the leave was not foreseeable, as soon as possible. Employees must complete the necessary Human Resources forms and provide all documentation as required by the Human Resources office to substantiate the request.