School districts on the Wasatch Back have differing personnel policies for staff who are quarantining due to COVID-19.
The Wasatch County School District and the South Summit School District follow Utah Department of Health guidelines that require a 10-day quarantine period for employees who test positive for COVID.
Park City, Wasatch County and South Summit school districts all offer some form of a sick-day bank which allows employees to access extra paid time off when a catastrophe strikes. Employees must be enrolled in that program to participate. Qualifying to use sick-bank days is subject to committee review. Being out for COVID quarantine may be eligible but is not guaranteed.
As KPCW reported, in Park City schools, employees who test positive must quarantine for 10 days if they test positive for COVID and use personal time off for that, as for any illness.
Unlike the other three districts, North Summit School District does not require employees to use personal time off (PTO) if quarantining for COVID.
Park City Education Association Co-President Jake Jobe said the employee quarantine policy is a perfect storm of conditions starting with no one anticipating the virulence of the DELTA strain.
"One, we know that teachers are using PTO to cover COVID quarantine. Two, people didn't predict ahead of time that this was going to happen last spring. Three, we believe there's maybe some way to fix it, and the district's working with us to do that. And whether that happens because we had to figure out all the different avenues and the district said that if we can figure something out, we'll figure something out. But it's, it's not okay for teachers to be using their PTO while they're teaching from home, and using PTO to do COVID quarantine, like even if you're sick, you don't have a choice, it's forced, so it's a different scenario."
Jobe said many longer-term teachers might have enough personal time accrued to use for quarantine time, but newer employees are less likely to have enough time built up in their PTO accounts.
"I know this has happened. We have teachers experiencing this. They'll get quarantined like if their family member has it. It's not safe to come to school, and they're just zooming in teaching, but they're using PTO while they're teaching. And this is what we want to address with the district. And everybody knows this is going on. The problem is, professionally, I don't feel sick. I don't want to be at home, but I also have responsibilities to my students and not be in school if exposed. So, what's going on so far is that we have some zooming in and teaching. The district's not making them do that, but they feel a professional responsibility or obligation to do so. And they're using PTO. That's come up a lot in the last few days, and admin at the school-based sites and the district are trying to figure out how to fix that."
Jobe said before January of 2021, funds for covering COVID quarantine were available through the federal CARES Act money.
"If you use up your PTO, let's say at the end of the year, you have some emergency if you have to go see a relative who's sick or who is in the hospital, or you have to go to graduation for a kid that's in college or whatever. If you're out of your PTO because you're not sick, that's leave without pay."
Jobe said the Park City Education Association meets on Monday evening with district and school administrators to discuss the policy.
