New Bill Makes FMLA Easier to Get for Bus Drivers, Paraprofessionals, and School Support Staff

The ESP, Paraprofessional, and Education Support Staff Family Leave Act is a targeted bill designed to fix a major headache for the folks who keep our schools running—the bus drivers, cafeteria workers, maintenance crews, and especially the paraprofessionals. It addresses a long-standing issue where the academic calendar often makes it impossible for these essential employees to qualify for job-protected leave under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA).

The FMLA Roadblock for School Staff

To use FMLA, you usually have to meet two main requirements: work for a covered employer for at least 12 months and log 1,250 hours in the previous year. For many education support professionals (ESPs), those 1,250 hours are a huge hurdle. Why? Because their work schedules are tied to the school year, they often don’t work during the summer or extended breaks, meaning they fall short of the required hours even though they are full-time employees during the school year.

This bill introduces a special eligibility bypass for "covered educational employees"—basically, anyone who is a paraprofessional or handles support tasks like clerical work, driving, food service, or maintenance. Under the new rule (Section 2), these employees are considered eligible for FMLA if they worked at least 60% of the total monthly hours expected for their job during the previous school year. Think of it this way: if your job is expected to run 180 days a year, you only need to show you worked 60% of those expected hours, making qualification much more realistic for school staff.

New Paperwork for School Districts

While this change is great news for employees, it does add a new administrative task for school districts. To make this 60% rule work, the bill requires educational employers to keep precise records detailing the "total expected monthly hours" for every job description covered by this rule. This is critical because it establishes the baseline for that 60% calculation. For school administrators, this means clearly documenting and filing the expected hours for every support staff role, which could be an administrative burden, especially for smaller districts that might not have sophisticated HR systems.

Tailoring Leave Calculations to the School Year

Beyond eligibility, the bill also tackles how the leave itself is counted. Section 3 mandates that the Secretary of Labor must create specific methods for calculating the amount of FMLA leave time available to school employees. This acknowledges that a week of leave for a teacher or a bus driver, whose schedule is highly structured around the academic calendar, is different than a week of leave for someone working a standard 9-to-5, 52-week job. This provision aims to ensure that when a school employee needs FMLA, the amount of time they are entitled to is calculated fairly and accurately, taking into account the unique scheduling of the education sector.

In short, this legislation is a practical fix that recognizes the reality of working in education. It opens the door to crucial job protection for thousands of essential school support staff who were previously shut out of FMLA simply because their required work schedule didn't fit the standard 1,250-hour mold.