“I work for a school district.”

The 60 days

One section covers certificated employees — teachers, counselors, librarians, administrators. The other covers classified employees — instructional aides, custodians, bus drivers, food service, groundskeepers, office staff, campus supervisors. A district may require classified employees to have served for a set period, no more than three years, before this leave is available.

Both provide for industrial accident and illness leave in one fiscal year for the same injury, at full salary, for days you would otherwise have been working. Read the allowance carefully: the section for certificated employees says the leave “shall be for not less than 60 days” of school or work, and the section for classified employees says it “shall not be for less than 60 working days” — 60 is a floor, not a ceiling. A district may provide more by policy or by collective bargaining agreement, and being told “you get up to 60” is a misreading of the statute worth correcting in writing.

Compare that to ordinary temporary disability, which is two-thirds of your average weekly earnings and capped — for a 2026 injury — at $1,764.11 a week. For most school employees, 60 days at full pay is meaningfully more money, and it does not consume the sick leave you spent years accruing.

Districts do not always volunteer this. Ask for it by statute and by name.

How the sequence works

Industrial accident leave comes first. Then, if you are still off, accumulated sick leave. Then the extended leave provisions.

Any temporary disability the carrier pays during the industrial accident leave period is generally used to offset the district’s obligation, so you are not paid twice — but you receive the full-salary amount rather than the two-thirds amount.

And the 60 days do not have to be consecutive. They are counted for the same injury within a fiscal year, and if the leave runs into the next fiscal year, only the unused days carry over — not a new 60.

What else is different about school employment

CalSTRS and CalPERS disability. If you cannot return, there may be a disability retirement route that runs alongside the workers’ compensation case. These interact, and decisions in one affect the other — Government Code §§ 21150 and 21153 govern the CalPERS side. Do not resolve one without understanding the other.

Your district may be self-insured or in a JPA. Most California school districts participate in a joint powers authority rather than a commercial carrier. It does not change your rights; it changes who you are dealing with and sometimes how fast they move. Self-insured employers.

Assault while performing duties has its own provisions in the Education Code for certain employees, and nearly every California employer — schools included — must maintain a Violent Incident Log since July 1, 2024 (the exemptions are for health care covered by 8 CCR § 3342, corrections, law enforcement, teleworkers, and workplaces with fewer than 10 employees that are closed to the public). Ask for it. It is a record made contemporaneously, by them, and it is frequently the best evidence in an assault claim.

The injuries we see most in schools

Special education and instructional aides — lifting, transferring, restraint injuries, assault. This group is injured at rates far above the district average and is often the least likely to file.

Custodians and grounds — back, shoulder, knee, chemical exposure.

Bus drivers — back and neck from seating and vibration, plus assault.

Teachers — voice injuries, repetitive strain, and psychiatric injury, which has its own threshold and its own route. Psychiatric injury.

If you are a school employee who was told to use sick leave for a work injury, that is worth one phone call.