Parents and teachers met with state representative Janet Buckner on Friday to discuss bringing back a bill to allow unpaid leave for parents so they can attend their child’s school-related activities.
The Parental Involvement in K-12 Education Act was in effect for five years until a bill to extend the law failed last year.
The bill requires employers with 50 or more workers to provide unpaid leave for parents to attend their child’s school-related activities.
Only employees who are not otherwise given personal time off or vacation days are included in the bill.
Jessica Price, now a teacher for the Cherry Creek School District said she missed many of her kid’s activities when she was a waitress because she wasn’t allowed time off.
Now as a teacher, she’s seen how the problem affects her own students.
“Unfortunately as a teacher what I see is that the kids who need it the most, the parents who we want to see the very most, who it would make the biggest difference with, are the same ones who can’t take the time off work,” she said.
Rep. Buckner is sponsoring the bill, which to her, is personal.
Her late husband, who held her job before he died last year, was behind the original law. Now she hopes the bill will once again be passed, this time indefinitely.
"It’s a proven fact that the more involved parents are in their kids’ education, the better they do," she said.
Representative Buckner plans to introduce the bill early in the legislative session.
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