Lakewood School District Announces it will Begin Docking Pay for Sick Days used for Personal Days, Holidays; Some Employees Furious

sickSome Lakewood School District employees today are furious after the School District announced they will begin docking pay for sick days used as personal days, something they say was never an issue in the past.

“This came to all employees Erev Sukkos and Erev Pesach when they deliberately know that the employees are not given enough personal days to accommodate all the Jewish holidays,” a Frum District employee told TLS.

Employees say in a town like Lakewood, they should know better that it’s impossible for Jewish employees to use only sick days, when the holidays are longer, and impossible to come to work.

In their letter, the District wrote that employees are entitled to four days of personal time, and secretaries are entitled to five days.

“Everyone knows that between the four Yomim Tovim of Sukkos, four of Pesach, and two of Shavuos, that we have to use sick days,” another employee said.

“This shows what kind of people who are totally unconnected to the vitality and dynamics of this town are running this district,” an employee said. “This is an disgrace for this town.”

Another employee wrote TLS, “Every teacher, administrator, and up until now, every superintendent, knew that you use personal days first and then your sick days. I do not know of a frum teacher in any district docked pay for Yom Tov. The administration knows the disparate impact this policy has on frum people. This new interpretation may be disparate treatment.”

Yet another employee sent the following.

“Over the last couple of years, the district has become less “Jewish Holiday Friendly”. While the last day of Passover used to be included in spring break, in recent years, we had to take a day off for yom tov. Now, they aren’t even giving spring break over Passover at all. Ironically, spring break is starting a day after Purim. Could they not have included Purim? Now, to make matters worse, the district now sent out a letter saying that we will be docked pay for holidays.”

Board of Education member Isaac Zlatkin expressed his concern that the teachers dont have enough personal days.

“Not having enough personal days may prompt employees to resort to using sick days for holidays, facing the reality that they may not get paid due their religious restrictions,” Zlatkin told TLS. “I believe we should discuss this with administration and our attorneys and come with a common sense solution which will work for all district employees within the law.”

[TLS]

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26 COMMENTS

  1. what you should be mad about is getting too few off days, in a township with these demographics, and that should be the fight. Not that you should be able to use sick days for something else! sorry, guys- sick days are for sickness.

    Of course, considering the fact that we seem to be second class citizens just because of our religion, maybe you just have to work the system. It certainly seems like the bureaucrats hate Americans that don’t believe the same thing as them in so many NJ government sectors. Then again, we keep voting them in with no accountability- where on earth are our politicians on the BOE disgrace?!?!?!?!?- so maybe we deserve it.

    I say we pull a founding fathers and find somewhere to start a new country that actually treats everyone equally, regardless of their religious beliefs. Let the haters go back to the monarchy they clearly loved- that worked really well, didn’t it?!

  2. This looks like a pretty standard policy for public school. Can the district legally change the public school week schedule to match the private schools? That would be a solution.

  3. In my school district we only get three personal days per school year and I have always had to take unpaid leave days for Pesach and/or other yomim tovim when the district is open. The only way to get that to change is through collective bargaining when a new contract is in the works. I understand the frustration as this always causes a big financial hardship on my family but a rule is a rule. On another note, this is especially difficult with the current school calendar when Lakewood and all the neighboring districts are open during Passover and only closed for Easter.

  4. Has any professional or public employee out there, anywhere in America, been actually docked pay for taking off on Yom Tov? I am sure if it was not Lakewood, this would not be an issue.

  5. Leo,

    You are wrong. You cannot change a policy in order to target a protected class of citizens.

    Moreover, every other public employer and its management allows Jewish employees to take off on Yom Tov without penalty.

    Standard practice? To have spring break, 10 days off, the day after Purim in a town like Lakewood?

  6. @10 anon.

    I do not understand what you mean, as I was talking about changing the public school schedule. The public school is a protected class?

    Also, I do not think your spring break comment was to me, as I never brought it up.

  7. I work in a neighboring school district and they have the same policy that you have to take unpaid days for any non sick day if you use up your personal days. I spoke to the NJEA lawyer and he concurred that it’s totally within their rights. More so they will even charge you for your medical insurance after a certain amount of unpaid days taken.

  8. Every principal and superintendent told us to use sick days. This was always the policy. I am sure if someone brought it up in another district they would say the same.

    It is only because of our numbers that they are changing the policy.

    What I said before about Spring Break is that every year for the last two decades, it was on Pesach. It will no longer be on Pesach starting this year. It will not be on Pesach next year. And this year, the first day of Spring Break is Friday, Mar 25, the day after Purim. Since we do not return to school until 10 days later, they could have started Spring break a day earlier and ended a day earlier.

    Bottom line; they do not care about the citizens of this town. They have never made an effort to recruit people. Nay, when I was hired, they said that I could not work there since I was frum. Of course, once I found that out they had to hire me because they said I was” not like the rest of them.” This change in policy and its insensitivity to the local pool of candidate and residents for employment is unconscionable.

  9. @Barry E., Cambridge, Oxford and Merriam-Webster dictionaries all disagree with you. In fact, despite the questionable grammar and syntax of the quote, the word choice of unconnected (vs. disconnected) is the correct connotation for this situation.

  10. I haven been an public school employee for a number of years. when we were highered we were told explicitly that we would be able to use our sick days for religious holidays, and that has been the policy always. they have also always given spring break at the same time as Passover. This year they did not for technical reasons and I was upset but sort of understood why. But now they put out the calander for next year and there they give the spring break starting exactly right after Passover! When they do this it creates huge problems for both us and them. This years calander, even if you were allowed to use all your personal and sick days for the holidays you could early make it, not leaving one single day for you to take off the rest of the year. They are also making their own problems because when all of us are out at the same time it makes running the school very difficult. furthermore, if they don’t let us use our sick days, we will still be out because we cannot come in, and in addition we will be out even more days of the year because now we can actually use our sick days for when we or our children are sick. What they should be doing is giving us religious observance days, in which the only pay docked from us is what the substitute costs them. We would still lose money but it would be half the amount.

  11. To #16
    I reached out to Agudah and was told there is nothing to do about it as they are not required to pay you for taking off they are just required to permit you to take off without pay.

  12. In the real world, everywhere on the planet, you don’t get paid for what you don’t work. When I was hourly I was only paid for hours worked. I was accommodated for leaving early on Friday but NOT paid. As a salaried employee I accrue PTO which I can use as I want so long as I give notice. The Board of Ed in Lakewood does not want Jewish employees. It wants to remain a bleeding and failing system. In Howell PS parents pay for Pre School. We expanded our Pre school program this year acquiring many more students. Spanish parents dropped out of FREE Headstart (not part of Lkwd tax base direct from DC fiscally) to go to PS, because it is a longer day and the children have busing to school and back and there is Zero Cost to parents. Just to give you an idea of the bright talent we have in Lakewood.

  13. You are all missing the point. This is our school district paid for with our property tax dollars. The district should be resident friendly. The money we pay in taxes should stay in Lakewood providing jobs for our residents.

    As for the Agudah, they are wrong. You cannot change a policy in order to target a protected class of citizens, specifically members of a particular religion. They never docked pay from anyone else using sick days. But this is besides the point. The point is that your BOE put these people in charge.

  14. What is this Anti-Lakewood change in policy? For twenty years Spring Break was on Pesach. They also closed schools on Rosh HaShanna and Yom Kippur. Why now, the change? I pay $15,000 in property taxes. This is not the kind of BOE I expect in this town!

  15. BOE employees only get a few personal and sick days for the entire year? Nobody gets any vacation days? In corporate america frum jews everywhere will be using their vacation days for the yomim tovim (in fact, in many companies days without pay is a last resort after all eleigible time off is used – making it a requirement to use vacation days for yom tov). I find it hard to believe that the unionized BOE employees only negotiated seven days off a year, 4 personal and 3 sick.

  16. #24- contract states 10 sick days (can be carried over each year) and 4 personal days ( not carried over) no vacation days.

  17. Unless it is that the amount of employees suddenly calling in sick disrupts the running of classes , If they have the time whether sick day or other paid day what’s the big deal. Now if all thier allotted paid days are used then maybe grant the day with out pay, as long as it doesn’t interfere with the smooth operations in school. Otherwise sorry, no one owes your religious days off with pay when working in a public school. The bus drivers in Lakewood are expected to work on their holidays when the Jewish schools are open, as per a froend telling me.

Comments are closed.