The city of Park Ridge has added Park Ridge School District 64 to its exemption from Cook County’s paid time off ordinance, exercising the home-rule option of the law.
The Park Ridge City Council voted at its Jan. 21 meeting to add District 64 to its existing exemption ordinance.
The Cook County law, which requires county employers – including some school and park districts – to provide up to 40 hours of paid leave annually, went into effect last year. However, school and park districts were given until Jan. 1 to make the offering available to its workers. That time could be frontloaded or accrued one hour at a time for every 40 hours worked.
District 64 enrolls some 4,600 students in pre-K to eighth grade across eight schools. The district has a workforce that includes more than 370 teachers.
The county’s law mirrors a state law of the same effect.
Park Ridge had previously used its home rule authority to exempt itself from Cook County’s Paid Time Off ordinance and from the state’s Paid Leave for All Workers Act.
Park Ridge Administrative Services Manager Leisa Niemotka pointed out that the original 2017 county ordinance on paid leave was amended to mirror the state’s PLAW, but with one significant difference.
“The Cook County park district and school districts, while exempted from the state act, were not exempted from the Cook County paid leave ordinance,” Niemotka said at a 2024 meeting.
The exemption the city of Park Ridge approved last year included Maine Township High School District 207 and the Park Ridge Park District. District 64 was not included at that time, with officials there choosing instead to work with the county to try to carve out the district’s own exemption.
“There was a thought that ‘Was there an oversight on the county’s part?’” said District 64 school board President Denise Pearl. “There were a lot of advocacy efforts going on at the county level at that time. We did not know what the results of that advocacy would be.”
Cook County amended its ordinance in December 2023, but school districts advocated for exemptions well into the year. In September 2024, East Maine School District 63 Superintendent Shawn Schleizer delivered to the Cook County Board a letter from 141 superintendents and other officials representing 97 school districts asking to be opted out of the ordinance.
Schleizer said school districts having to cover additional leave could compromise student safety.
“Specialized roles like social workers and nurses lack feasible substitutes, leaving vulnerable students without essential services,” Schleizer told the county board.
Pearl said that District 64 already has leave policies it has worked out with its unions that balance the need for time off with the need to provide students with safety and education. She said seasonal and part-time employees like substitute teachers are where the paid time off ordinance complicates things.
“Some of them are very part-time where they may work once a month,” Pearl said. “Does this apply to those individuals? Because we have a lot of substitutes, who work at different times for the district.”
In his Sept. 2024 statement to the County Board, Schleizer estimated that the mandate would cost his district, which serves 12,000 high school students, an additional $3.1 million a year.
Pearl estimated the ordinance would cost District 64 an additional $1 million a year, which would force them to shift resources and cut back elsewhere to compensate.
“It’s a big cost, financial cost, to the district,” Pearl said. “We would really have to look at our budget and reallocate funds to make this happen.”
Alan Kozeluh is a freelancer.
