Newsom budget backs paid pregnancy leave for California educators

Gavin Newsom’s revised budget put state money behind paid pregnancy leave for California educators, and the proposal’s wording reaches beyond childbirth to include abortion-related procedures. The budget would fund up to 14 weeks of paid leave for TK-12 schools and community colleges, reviving a fight that had stalled in the Legislature and sharpening the policy debate around abortion benefits.

The budget language tracks Assembly Bill 65, the Pregnancy Leave for Educators Act, authored by Assembly Majority Leader Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, a Democrat from Winters. The bill would give public school and community college employees up to 14 weeks of fully paid leave for pregnancy, miscarriage, childbirth, termination of pregnancy, or recovery from those conditions. It would also bar districts from requiring workers to drain other leave banks first and would require continued group health coverage during the leave.

That wording matters because California law does not guarantee paid pregnancy leave for educators now. Under current rules, many teachers can receive up to four months of unpaid leave, and once sick leave is exhausted they often move onto differential pay that can cut compensation by 50 percent or more. The California Teachers Association has backed AB 65 and made it a legislative priority, framing the bill as a workplace benefit for school employees who are excluded from state disability insurance.

The political history is already long. Newsom vetoed a similar paid maternity leave bill in 2019, arguing that it would be too costly for school districts and colleges. AB 65 passed the California Assembly on June 3, 2025, but later missed a Senate hearing deadline on July 18, 2025, leaving the measure without a clean path forward until the budget revived the issue.

The governor’s May 14, 2026 revised budget did more than reopen the leave fight. It paired the paid pregnancy leave funding with a $5 billion Student Support and Professional Development Discretionary Block Grant and said the revised budget eliminated the projected deficit through July 2028 while preserving reserves. That broader fiscal framing gives Newsom and legislative allies room to argue the policy is affordable, even as opponents and skeptics can still press on who ultimately pays: the state, local districts, or both.

The debate lands in a state that has moved aggressively on reproductive policy since Dobbs. California has enacted more than two dozen laws aimed at making the state a reproductive-health safe haven, including measures to expand abortion access and protect patients and clinicians. AB 65 folds educator leave into that broader agenda, while leaving the most politically sensitive line in plain view: state-funded paid leave that explicitly includes termination of pregnancy.