One bright spot in this mostly dismal 2020 has been the launch of Washington’s Paid Family Medical Leave program (PFML). About 170,000 workers have applied for benefits this year. They include many people who had the joy of welcoming a new child into their family, others coping with a serious health crisis, and people like my good friend who is caring for her father through his last months of life.
Before PFML, extended paid leave benefits were typically only available to highly paid employees of a few large companies. Lower-wage workers and people from BIPOC communities had the odds stacked against them in the “boss lottery.” Now almost everyone who works in Washington can take 12 to 18 weeks off work to recover their own health or care for a loved one without sacrificing financial security.
Question: I’m an 18-year-old recent high-school grad. I was really looking forward to heading off to college this fall but because of the pandemic, my school is choosing to only offer online classes. My relationship with my parents is good, I was just looking forward to having the opportunity to be more independent and figure out who I am. I’m concerned that by staying home, we’ll all fall into the same patterns. I’m worried how my parents might react to this if I tell them how I’m feeling. Any ideas on how to have the conversation would be really appreciated.
It’s no news to Seattle parents and caretakers that educating kids has become even more of a challenge since the city closed school campuses in March. Many have been asked without warning to take on the roles of teacher and childcare worker while still having to travel to essential jobs, find new employment or adapt to working from home.
A newly expanded partnership between Seattle Public Schools and the Seattle Public Library hopes to ease the transition by offering families free access to a suite of online resources. With just their school identification number, all K-12 students can now log in to the library’s digital databases and electronic media.
