SOUTHEASTERN EDUCATION ASSOCIATION
SICK LEAVE BANK GUIDELINES
Purpose and Intent:
It is not uncommon for employees to experience severe illness, injury, an accident, or to suffer from a serious and chronic illness, which depletes accumulated sick leave days or prevents the accumulation of sick leave days. Indiana law (IC 20-6.1-5-7) allows the creation of a sick leave bank to assist employees who need additional days.
The purpose of the sick leave bank is to relieve employees from undue financial burdens caused by catastrophic and severe illness, injury, an accident, or disability. It is the intent of the SEA that no teacher with a serious medical disability be forced to take unpaid leave and lose both his/her health care insurance and salary while disabled.
It is not the intent of the Southeastern Education Association for a majority of teachers to provide a small minority of teachers with additional fully paid sick leave days for minor medical problems or short-term illnesses.
It is the intent of the SEA that the Sick Leave Bank provide benefits before the Catastrophic Emergency Sick Bank described in Article IX, Section 1g provides additional days to get a seriously ill teacher to Long Term Disability insurance coverage.
Guidelines
A sick leave bank shall be established and administered as follows:
1. Each qualified employee shall contribute one (1) of the employee’s sick days to the Sick Leave Bank when the Sick Leave Bank Committee directs.
2. Days that are thus placed in the Sick Leave Bank shall, if unused, accumulate from school year to school year.
3. The Association shall have the full right and responsibility to promulgate the rules and regulations governing use of such Sick Leave Bank days and to administer such bank, except as restricted by the collective bargaining agreement, or by applicable law.
4. Rules and regulations governing use of such Sick Leave Bank days, which rules and regulations shall be promulgated by the Association, shall be in writing. The Association shall provide a copy of such rules and regulations to any qualified individual upon reasonable request, and shall provide a copy (including any updated editions) of such rules and regulations to the Superintendent within a reasonable time after their promulgation (or in the case of a new edition, their compilation), and shall advise the Superintendent in writing of any changes in such rules or regulations within five (5) school days following such changes.
5. The term “qualified employee” shall include all employees of the bargaining unit. Any rules and regulations governing bank usage shall not distinguish between Association members and Association non-members, but shall apply without discrimination to all school employees.
6. In order to provide a legal justification for payment through the Sick Leave Bank of Board funds to any employee, the Association shall, with regard to any employee who is determined eligible to receive sick bank benefits, certify to the Superintendent in writing the eligibility of the employee, and shall in addition notify the Superintendent as to the date any such benefits are to cease. In any event, however, benefits as to any and all employees shall cease should the available days in the Sick Leave Bank become exhausted.
7. The Superintendent shall provide statements of the status of the Sick Leave Bank to the Association, including the number of bank days used during the preceding year, and by whom, as well as indicating the balance of days remaining in the Sick Leave Bank account according to School Corporation records.
8. The Sick Leave Bank Committee may grant, deny, or suspend grants of sick days from the bank. If deemed, an applicant shall have the right to request reconsideration by the committee. Should the reconsideration be denied, the applicant shall have the right to appeal the decision to the SEA President. The judgment and decision of the President shall be final.
9. Any grants, by necessity, will be retroactive, except in instances of hospitalization, confinement in a nursing home or similar institution, in which cases the committee may grant days in advance when applicant is supported by appropriate medical evidence. Furthermore, each applicant automatically consents to submit a physician’s statement concerning illness, injury or disability.
10. Sick leave bank benefits shall not be approved for periods of time for which an employee would not otherwise be under employment as an employee by the corporation, i.e. fall break, Christmas vacation, spring break, summer, etc.
11. An employee who is employed in summer school shall be entitled to sick leave benefits only to the extent of the term of that employee’s supplemental contract, but in no case exceeding the provision of paragraph 10 above. Any days drawn will be charged as a full day from the sick leave bank.
12. The sick leave bank committee will consist of nine (9) members. The employees on the sick leave bank committee will be appointed by the SEA President under its rules. A chairperson for the committee shall also be appointed by the SEA President. At least two employees from each school building shall be appointed by the SEA President. The President may not serve on the committee or as the Chairperson of the Committee.
13. The committee may hold nine (9) regularly scheduled meetings during the school year. Special meetings may be called by the chairperson or on the request of any three (3) committee members. A majority of members will be required for any official action of the committee.
14. It shall be the responsibility of the committee to establish a sick leave bank accounting system, as well as forms necessary for the transaction of the committee’s business.
15. It shall be the responsibility of the committee to meet and act upon each application for sick leave bank days within five (5) days of receipt of the application; and further, to notify the applicant and the Superintendent of the committee’s actions within the next two (2) school days.
16. The administration of the sick leave bank shall be under strict standards of non- discrimination regardless of age, color, creed, sex, or status with regard to the Association.
17. Additions, deletions, and/or amendments to these guidelines may be made by a majority vote of the committee, and must then be approved by the Association’s
Executive Committee, or may be made by the Association’s Executive Committee and shall be effectuated no sooner than five (5) working days after notification of such additions, deletions, and/or amendments to all interested parties.
Individual Applicant Responsibilities
1. The individual teacher is responsible to complete all sick leave forms for the administration accurately, completely, and in a timely manner. Failure to do so may result in denial of an application for sick leave bank days.
2. Any individual teacher who applies for sick leave bank days voluntarily waives all federal and state law rights to privacy regarding personal medical information requested by the SEA Sick Leave Bank Committee, the SCSC or required on its forms.
3. Any individual teacher who applies for Sick Leave Bank Days is solely responsible to complete the application form and obtain a letter from their licensed physician or surgeon, to provide copies of all annual leave and sick leave forms submitted to the administration during the current school year, and to submit nine (9) copies of each to the Chairperson of the SEA Sick Leave Bank Committee. The individual teacher is responsible to complete the sick leave bank application form accurately, completely, and in a timely manner. Failure to do so may result in denial of an application for sick leave bank days.
4. The letter from the licensed physician or surgeon will explain the medical condition of the teacher, including the diagnosis, whether or not the medical condition is catastrophic, treatment plan and prognosis, as well as the time needed to be off work.
5. No teacher may apply for use of sick leave bank days without first exhausting all of their own unused annual leave days and their own accumulated sick leave days.
6. Teachers are not required to exhaust their three annual family illness days before applying for sick leave bank days.
7. Sick leave bank days are not to be used for the purpose of visiting the doctor at his/her office, unless the individual teacher is on extended sick leave. Doctor’s office visits shall be scheduled before or after the teacher workday whenever possible.
8. Except in cases of catastrophic illness, the greatest number of sick leave bank days granted in any one school year to any one individual employee will be two times the number of days allotted to the teacher at the end of the first pay period of that school year. For example, a teacher with zero (0) accumulated leave days will be granted eleven (11) on the first day of school, and if none are used, the first two weeks of school, then two (2) x eleven (11) days or twenty-two (22 ) days would be
available from the sick leave bank. That school year that teacher would then have 11 individual days plus 22 bank days for a total of 33 days that school year. If a teacher with zero (0) accumulated leave days was granted eleven (11) on the first day of school and then three (3) were deducted to repay the sick leave bank for prior usage, then 11 - 3 = 8 x 2 = 16 So, sixteen (16) total days would be available from the sick leave bank for that school year in addition to the eight (8) leave days for a total of 24 days that school year.
9. Except in cases of catastrophic illness, no teacher may be granted more than a total of forty (40) days of sick leave from the bank. Except in cases of catastrophic illness, these forty (40) days will roll over from school year to school year until repaid to the Bank.
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