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Springfield educators press school committee to restore 15 sick days, push paid family leave as talks continue
Summary
Three Springfield teachers described medical emergencies and long unpaid leaves during public comment and urged reinstating 15 sick days and paid family and medical leave. District negotiators said bargaining is ongoing and that family medical leave costs remain unresolved.
Three Springfield public school teachers used the committee's public-speak-out to press the district to restore 15 sick days and adopt paid family and medical leave, describing medical crises that left them without pay.
Christine Jasiewicz, a special-education teacher at Sumner Avenue, told the committee she delivered her daughter by emergency C-section in December 2019 and spent months without pay while her newborn stayed 79 days in a neonatal intensive-care unit. "No one should ever have to choose between their family and their paycheck," Jasiewicz said.
Rhonda Hall Reynolds, a 20-year veteran and special-education teacher at Elias Brookings Elementary School, described caring for a husband who survived a cardiac arrest and then dialysis, saying she exhausted sick leave and the district had informed her that Springfield had opted out of paid family medical leave. "If…
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