CAR days are for your own illness and can be accumulated up to 200 days. Members earn and can use 10 self-treated days per school year as long as they are on payroll. Self-treated days do not require a doctor's note. Three of the self-treated days can be used for personal business and/or to care for an ill family member (a total of 3; not 3 each).

Medically-certified days (and anything beyond 10 self-treated days) do require medical documentation.

Personal business is defined as something that can only be done during the school day, such as closing on a house. Personal business days should be requested in advance and the principal may ask the nature of the personal business before granting approval. 

Termination Pay: You retire with all your Cumulative Absent Reserve (CAR) days and are paid out for half your days at your daily rate.  

Terminal Leave: You use your CAR days, every 2 days in reserve counting as one day, to stay on payroll and retire off your leave. Terminal Leaves may not cross over semesters and you must give your principal at least 30 days notice (OP40) before the start of your leave. 

Both parents are each entitled to six weeks of Paid Parental Leave if they both work for the DOE in UFT-represented titles. As of the 2023 contract, this couple may take a total of 12 weeks of Paid Parental Leave, each using their six weeks of parental leave time. 

The combined 12 weeks of parental leave can run concurrently (six weeks each, at the same time) or consecutively (six weeks for one parent, followed by six weeks for the other parent). However, one parent may not donate their leave time to the other to increase one's Paid Parental Leave period beyond six weeks. 

Any time a person is off payroll, their summer pay is reduced accordingly. In other words, if you are off payroll for 10% of the school year, your summer pay would be reduced roughly 10%. If you are on Parental Leave, this loss is compensated for in the check you receive from the Welfare Fund. Any time that you are out on a Childcare Leave, or any time off payroll outside of the 6 weeks of Parental Leave, will result in a vacation pay reduction.

You can apply for a sabbatical by logging onto the DOE's Self Online Leave Application System (SOLAS).  SOLAS is available at https://apps.schools.nyc/solas.  

If you are a teacher with 7 years of service, you could be eligible for a six-month sabbatical.  People on six-month sabbaticals are paid 60% of their regular pay.  People who are on year-long sabbaticals (which require 14 years of service) receive 70% of their regular pay.

See the UFT's main page on sabbaticals for more information. 

You can stop working a week before your due date without any additional medical documentation. If you want to go on leave before that, you would need a note from your doctor that includes a diagnosis and prognosis.

When you return from a leave of absence, in most cases you return to your school or worksite.  In some cases, you may be excessed while on a leave, if you were the least senior person in your license area and your school experienced a drop in enrollment.  Some titles, like Guidance Counselors, Speech Teachers and Occupational and Physical Therapists have time limits for a right of return to your school or worksite.

Yes.  People who do not return from a Paid Parental Leave are responsible to repay the money they received while on this leave. If you do not return to active service for 12 calendar months, you will be required to pay back the UFT Parental Leave benefit.

People can borrow days before the birth in what is known as Maternity Disability. Once the baby is born, birth mothers can only borrow days if they take Maternity Leave. There is no right to borrow days if you use Paid Parental Leave. 

Parental leave, also known as Paid Parental Leave, provides for 6 weeks of paid leave for eligible employees. Birth mothers, fathers or other partners of birth mothers, adoptive parents and foster parents may be eligible for parental leave.  In the case of birth mothers, these 6 weeks can be supplemented by using CAR days from the day of birth until the CAR days run out, or 6 weeks worth of CAR days have been used (8 weeks in the case of a C-Section).  So, if a birth mother has the days in her bank, she would get 12 weeks (14 in the case of a C-section) of paid leave. Members cannot borrow days or use a grace period when taking parental leave. Members who take Parental Leave commit to returning to the DOE for a minimum of one year following the leave.  

Maternity leave is  a birth mother's right to use CAR days following a birth for 6 weeks (8 in the case of a C-section).  There is no additional right to paid leave.  Birth mothers who take maternity leave are allowed to borrow days and use a grace period within the 6 (or 8 weeks for C-sections) window,  There is no return-to-service requirement under maternity leave, though if a person borrows days, she has to either return to service or repay those days to avoid being billed for them. 

The city continues to provide health insurance in either case.