The state Assembly approved a bill that would allow parents to take time off to attend their kids’ school-related activities, like conferences and classroom activities.
Hopefully the Senate will follow suit and support working parents who want to increase their involvement in their kids’ education.
This family-flex bill would apply to employees of businesses with more than 50 employees to take up to 16 hours off per year for school-related activities that cannot be scheduled outside of business hours. This would allow parents to check out a new school or day care facility, attend parent-teacher conferences, and monitor the child’s day care or classroom. The time off would be unpaid.
Democrats mostly voted for the billMilwaukee Rep. Pedro Colon and Rep. Bob Ziegelbauer of Manitowoc voted “no,” while most Republicans opposed it.
It’s such an easy fix, but hopefully this bill (if passed by the Senate) will help parents in MPS take time off to visit their kids’ schools and get to know their teachers and classmates. Parental involvement is a huge problem for MPS; fearing backlash from the boss may be hindering parents from taking that extra stepespecially if you have kids in multiple schools across the city, as many families do.
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In a release, Amy Stear of 9to5 said: “Working women have been working hard to move family-friendly policies like this. Wisconsin is catching up with Minnesota, Illinois, and many other states with similar school conference leave laws. The tide is turning to support the current realities of the workplace. The push for family-flexible work will keep advancing, so no parent will have to choose between a child’s wellbeing and their job.”
9to5 noted that the Families and Work Institute found that only 29% of low-wage, low-income families had flexibility over starting and quitting times at their jobs, compared to 51% of higher-wage, higher-income parents.
