A new report from the National Council on Teacher Quality highlights the lack of paid parental leave for teachers across the country, including in Hawaiʻi.
The Conversation spoke with the organization’s president, Heather Peske, about the costs and negative consequences caused by the lack of paid parental leave.
Peske said that two-thirds of states offer no guaranteed paid parental leave for teachers beyond the sick days that they accumulate.
"When we look at paid parental leave for teachers in the U.S. compared to other industries in the U.S., only 1 in 3 teachers reports access to paid parental leave," she said.
Hawaiʻi does not offer paid parental leave to teachers, and Peske said as a result, they have to hoard sick days and try to have their children in the summer when they're off.
"We're essentially asking teachers to choose between having their own children and supporting them as teachers and supporting their students," Peske said.
"When we do that, we all lose, because oftentimes teachers will choose their own families naturally, and it means that they leave the classroom, and when teachers leave the classroom, it's destabilizing for students, and it's also really costly for districts."
The council's research estimates that large districts spend roughly $25,000 to replace a teacher when they leave the classroom.
The report highlighted that Delaware and Arkansas were the only two states that each provided 12 weeks of paid leave, and covered the full cost of long-term substitutes while the teachers are out on leave.
When it comes to the cost of paid parental leave, states can leave funding costs to districts or fund them through statewide programs.
"If you want to kind of look and estimate how much it would cost, we developed something we called the paid parental leave calculator, and this is to make it more easy for states and districts to do the math to see how much it would cost per taxpayer to pay for paid parental leave for teachers," Peske said.
"In some places, it's quite affordable, especially as I said, in contrast to not offering paid parental leave and risking seeing your teachers leave the profession."
Read the full report here.
This story aired on The Conversation on Jan. 13, 2026. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. Hannah Kaʻiulani Coburn adapted this story for the web.
