The School Superintendents Association [AASA] supports changing Obamacare’s definition of a full-time employee from 30 hours a week to 40.
The 30-hour full-time threshold “limits the ability of schools to meet the delicate staffing balance that’s needed to successfully administer educational programs,” Noelle Ellerson, the Associate Executive Director of Policy & Advocacy at the AASA, told the Washington Examiner. “It’s an arbitrary limit that’s counter to the longstanding American tradition of the work week being 40 hours.”
Districts use a combination of crucial part-time personnel, such as bus drivers, cafeteria workers, and coaches, whose jobs add up to between 30 and 39 hours a week. Under the 30-hours-or-more definition of a full-time employee, school districts must provide health insurance that they would not under the typical 40-hour definition. These added costs make it difficult to affordably maintain staffing levels.
All that funding for health insurance means less money going to students’ educations.
“One of the most immediately impactful examples of this is the use of substitutes,” said Ellerson. She explained that schools consistently rely on high-quality substitute teachers to fill in for sick teachers, whether teachers are sick for five days in a week or out on maternity leave. The 30-hour work week definition means districts would have to provide these substitutes with health coverage. As a result, districts are compensating by using fewer high-quality substitutes or giving high-quality substitutes only partial weeks of work.
The House of Representatives passed the Save American Workers Act of 2015 on Thursday, which would classify workers of 40 hours or more as a full-time employee under Obamacare’s employer mandate. The bill passed with 252 votes in favor to 172 against, with 12 Democrats voting in support.
The AASA does not have a position on the overall Affordable Care Act. It has more than 13,000 members, ranging from superintendents to professors to senior level school administrators.
