Today our university sent out an email with info. for parents of school-aged children. It links to the HR website, which is difficult to follow, but it's the same leave options under Families First legislation that was posted in the spring. 1/ @jfrickuga @nonmodernist @ibogost

The link our HR provided is here: https://jobs.georgiasouthern.edu/hr-covid-19/hr-ffcra/ I've also screenshot it below. 2/

It contains some very troubling language reminiscent of Florida State's retracted policy, like: "As a reminder, telework is not a substitute for childcare and it is reasonable for the institution to ask for evidence of appropriate child care during working hours." 3/

And: "The employee should be fully engaged in work during work hours. Telework and flextime is an employee privilege, not an employee right." 4/

And it closes with this advice: "Some employees are working together with their neighbors and each other to establish a shared responsibility of providing instruction and assistance to children learning virtually." 5/

Cont'd from before: "In these situations, it minimizes exposure to a much smaller group and allows employees to minimize the time that work schedules and locations are disrupted." 6/

So, to break this down, a colleague expressed the following to me, all of which I am quoting with permission. I'm hoping that the hive mind of faculty across the Univ. System of GA will do what FS faculty/staff did so we can help those with school-aged children. 7/

The following 5 major problems are directly quoted from a colleague: 1. "It's limited to 12 weeks total, so if you used some or all of it in the spring or summer, you have nothing left to use now." 8/

2. "It's limited to 12 weeks total, so even if you wait until the first day of classes (August 17th), come November 9th, you have to report back to work, regardless of whether or not your child care or school is open." 9/

3. "The paid leave is capped at $200 dollars/day or $12,000 for the full 12 weeks. Faculty are contracted for 195 days, so 12 weeks represents over 30% of their pay." 10/

3 Cont'd: "Any faculty member with a base salary over $40k would have to take a pay cut with the leave, and in some cases that would be over $10k. This is on top of the financial hardship that many faculty have faced with spouses losing jobs, having hours or wages cut, etc." 11/

4. "If we take leave, then that means we are on leave, which means we aren't supposed to be doing any of the functions of our job. We need to be replaced on essential service obligations (like P&T committees) by remaining faculty who are already overburdened. " 12/

4 Cont'd: "ALL of our courses need to have replacement faculty assigned just three weeks before the start of the term. You can't force the remaining faculty to take overloads..." 13/

4 Cont'd: "...(and even if you could, there aren't enough of them to cover everything), so you have to find, vet, and get through the hiring and onboarding process adjuncts to teach all of those courses." 14/

4 Cont'd: "Those adjuncts have to be qualified, available on the days, times, and campuses required, not experiencing issues with child care or school closures, not have any underlying health conditions that put them at high risk of complications from COVID..." 15/

4 Cont'd: "...(or even just not wanting to have to teach F2F), and willing to do this for $3k/course. Good luck with that!" 16/

5: "If we use this leave, then we aren't eligible for unpaid FMLA for a year, which means if someone in our family gets sick with COVID-19 and needs us to care for them, we can't take FMLA to do it, which is just downright cruel." 17/17

And another observation: "Although the announcement is focused on employees with school-aged children, the same issues apply to faculty whose child cares close again." 18/

Cont'd: "The university--once again--completely ignored them in this announcement. They are going to be even more squeezed by this if child cares start closing again, just like they were last spring." 19/

Cont'd: "GSU closed its own laboratory school child care facility for 128 consecutive days and only just reopened this Monday." 20/20 (for now... stay tuned.)