Understand your rights
Federal and state laws are always shifting when it comes to parental leave, thankfully they are overall becoming better as time goes on, but this means that you need to understand your particular workplace rules and guidelines at the particular time you are having a baby. But do not be afraid to challenge them; I was told by an HR rep that “this was just how we did it.” I pushed back asking for the written policy, there wasn’t one which means that I was not bound by their arbitrary rules. Heck, I even took some matters to the head of HR to confirm that I was indeed correct in my understanding and other women were being told things that were false.
Each maternity leave, I took my 60 unpaid workdays under FMLA. My school district is quiet awful for leave but, luckily, I had enough sick time to cover all but one month of leave with my first and my husband could give me his sick time to be fully paid the second pregnancy. Make no mistake of it, this is an absolutely shitty way to treat families who work for you, but I made do in my situation. I extended my leave each pregnancy to come back as close to 4 months postpartum as made sense, by that point I was typically only up once a night with the baby and I felt human.
There is no “good time” to have a baby
Therefore there is no “bad time” to have a baby. Many teachers try to “plan” to have a baby towards the end of the school year to have the summer off during the newborn phase. That sounds great and I wanted to plan my life the same way and guess what? we had three miscarriages in a row. That in itself is a whole ‘nother blog post, but the biggest lesson I learned is to let go of some of my strong tendencies to have my life laid out. I have had two babies: one in July & one in December; which means I was not in school on the first day until mid-November and I was out the first day of second semester until mid-April. Pretty awful timing on both, but you know what? IT WAS FINE.
I was especially worried not being there for the first four months of the school year. How would I bond? Will they had a good foundation? Will they hate me coming back? What will their behaviors life? etc. Within a week we were cracking jokes like we were old friends. Now, don’t mistake my optimism for being laid back. I am NOT laid back; I had to come down with the hammer a lot. My first substitute really screwed things up, but since that is all out of my control there was no point in lamenting it.
The second time around my sub was much better, still not the disciplinarian I am though, but I was especially worried about my AP classes: I was coming back in time for 2-3 weeks of review before their AP exams. In the end I accepted my student’s desires to work to try to pass the AP Exam was on them. I could set them up as best I could before I left and do a banger review when I came back, but beyond that I had no control.
You do not have to make lesson plans
I am going to repeat the title because it is so important: you are not required to make lesson plans. Perhaps in a private school you are but federal law should protect you on this. Did I make lesson plans? Yes. But they weren’t perfect and they were not complete; I primarily focused on making lesson plans for my AP classes because those are much harder for someone to step in and substitute but my first sub thought he knew better than me and bucked the lessons I had made. What was the point of spending all summer then making those plans?
Do the plans YOU want to do. Plan only as far as you can. Let go of the rest. Your substitute is being paid to teach, grade, and plan. If they don’t do their job, that is not your fault. If your students tell you upon return that they “learned nothing,” report it immediately to your supervisor. With my first baby, even with a less than stellar sub, my AP World History pass rate when down by only 2 percentage points.
Read more: What do I do when I teach history?
Communicate about needs as soon as possible
Accommodations for pumping while at work is federal law, you do not have to beg, borrow and steal to find the minutes in the day. That being said, help your administration out by talking through what you need and how much time you need (for me it was about ~20 minutes of pumping time). The first time around, I had a coworker come into watch the first 10 minutes of my 4th period so I could finish the pumping I started during our extended break. Luckily the schedule at my new school has been better for me but if you need to pump while with students they have to help you make it work.
I always pumped after work so for any after school meeting I notified the administrator immediately that I had to report first and then leave to pump. I didn’t abuse the right, but I may have used pumped to get out some time of PD I didn’t love. shhhhhhh
Plan for an easy first day back
In my district, Wednesdays are an hour shorter and in my school (block MTThF) and Wednesday are straight 7 day. Therefore I try to plan to come back on a Wednesday from maternity leave. I love seeing all my kids in one day for a welcome back academic-free day PLUS I stop seeing students at 1:20pm AND it means I only have to work a half week.
Additionally, we do not have access to the network on day 1. The earliest is day two, but it is more like day 3. Therefore, both times I have communicated with my sub to print something for me I can do with my students without any technology. By the third day I also made sure to communicate with my student’s families that I was back and that I needed grace and time to review grades, assignments, and if there is some that they *think* I should know (i.e. a kid received accommodations while I was gone or something drastic happened) they need to email me ASAP because otherwise I will not know/get to it immediately.
JMF
