North Country locals win big for families

ast year, music teacher Katrina Sheats was overjoyed to discover she was pregnant with her first child, Melody.

But panic set in as Sheats began to fret about her lack of paid parental leave and the financial strain it would cause her growing family.

“I started worrying what would we have to do without and how was I going to cover all the expenses of a new baby? Being home with my baby was going to completely drain my savings until I could go back to work,” said Sheats, a member of the Ogdensburg Education Association.

At that time, OEA President Julie Finley says her members mainly had to use their accrued sick and personal time — a practice she says was unfair to new members who hadn’t built up a significant amount of time off.

“If you got pregnant your first or second year, you have basically no accumulated time and then you become behind on your bills, depressed, stressed,” Finley said. “A lot of people end up borrowing from our sick bank.”

Finley says the issue had been raised at a meeting with other local presidents talking about educators leaving their jobs because they couldn’t afford to have a baby without paid leave.

And on a more personal level, the mother of two teenagers said she also empathized in conversations with her female members who have children. Finley says they shared their frustration at how much faster their leave accruals were depleted compared to their male colleagues due to pregnancy complications, postpartum recovery and typically being the default caregiver for their children.

“When you retire from our district, you get paid for your sick time, and men were having substantial payouts compared to women because mothers generally take off more time when their children are sick, have doctor appointments, school functions, etc.,” she said. “It’s discrimination against women.”

As a result, Finley says OEA decided to suggest paid parental leave during contract negotiations as a way to recruit and retain educators.

Negotiations were done in two rounds and OEA signed a four-year deal in September 2024 that includes six weeks of parental leave, not to be taken from accumulated sick leave, for birthing and adoptive parents.

“I was seven months pregnant when I found out the good news,” Sheats recalled. “I couldn’t believe it! It was so exciting and a beautiful gift to just be able to focus on my baby and my family instead of worrying about affording things like diapers or formula if I couldn’t breastfeed. I was even stressing about making sure we have a budget for gas to be able to heat our house in the winter. It feels good that our district respects us as employees and as women, and I’m so thankful to our union for working so hard to negotiate this.”

Finley, the first female president of OEA, says this victory was a long time coming.

“It’s about damn time,” she said. “So many members have come up to thank me. Even other local presidents have reached out to me asking how we got this because they need it for their members.”

About 80 miles away in Franklin County, Chateaugay Teachers Association President Nikki Dumas says their recent paid parental leave win sparked a similar snowball reaction.

“When word got out, our superintendent told me a neighboring district in negotiations called her to try to get the same language,” Dumas shared.

Like OEA, CTA was able to negotiate six weeks of paid parental leave, not to be taken from accumulated sick leave, for the birthing parent with the stipulation that they must continue to work in the district for two years after or pay the district back.