Paying for educators’ parental leave can cost a district thousands of dollars. Not doing so—as the teaching workforce increasingly skews younger—could cost even more.
That’s the overall message from a new analysis of teachers’ use of the benefit from the National Council on Teacher Quality, a Washington-based research and advocacy group.
The vast majority of U.S. teachers are in their childbearing years (or have a partner who is). But only 1.8% to 3.5% of teachers take paid parental leave each year, compared to about 5.5% of U.S. women who give birth every year, NCTQ finds. (That figure is even higher when considering adoptions.)
Otherwise, teachers typically use available sick days to have some paid time off with their newborns, and supplement that with unpaid leave. (Most teachers qualify for unpaid, job-protected leave for 12 weeks under the Family Medical Leave Act, as long as they’ve been working at their job for a year.)
Some teachers try to time their pregnancies to give birth in the summer so they can maximize their time at home, although there’s no guarantee that’ll work.
Limited access to paid parental leave may exacerbate turnover in districts with young teaching pools, as pregnancy and child care are among the most common reasons for teachers to leave the classroom, according to Shannon Holston, NCTQ’s chief of policy and programs. A separate 2025 study by the RAND Corp. finds teachers are 23 percentage points less likely to have parental leave benefits than their peers in other fields.
In recent years, a growing number of states have enacted new policies offering some form of paid parental leave for teachers.
Still, the new NCTQ analysis of state policies also finds that fewer than a third of states require districts to offer any paid parental leave for teachers who have given birth or adopted, beyond their accumulated sick days. Only two states, Arkansas and Delaware, provide at least 12 weeks of fully paid leave—the minimum recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics to support infant development and family health.
“We know that evidence suggests that supporting teachers during these major life events strengthens retention, reduces burnout and absences, and promotes long-term instructional stability,” Holston said.
Arkansas began mandating—and helping pay for—teacher parental leave in 2025, because only about 10% of districts had adopted optional parental pay policies.
“Parental leave is more often than not predictable and limited in duration,” Holston said. “This can give districts time to plan for a highly effective substitute.”
NCTQ recommends that states reimburse districts for substitute teacher costs while they continue to pay salaries of teachers on parental leave. It released a new calculator that estimates the cost per taxpayer of state funding for parental leave for teachers.
For example, NCTQ estimates it would cost Tennessee, which already provides educators six weeks of paid parental leave and reimburses districts for substitute teachers, about $20 million, or just over $5 per taxpayer, to reimburse districts for the cost of substitute teachers during 12 weeks of parental leave.
