Paid Parental Leave Act (2025)
Adoption made easier. The Alabama K-12 Public School and State Employee Paid Parental Leave Act of 2025 went into effect on July 1, 2025.) This bill gave all state and public school employees paid parental time off for adoptions!
There are few moments in life more sweet than when you bring home a new little bundle of joy – whether birthed or adopted. Children are a blessing, but the smaller they are the more work they require!
What This Means for Parents Going through Adoption:
This is great news for new adoptive parents of little ones! Here’s what the new paid parental leave law specifically provides for adoptive parents:
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8 Weeks of Paid Parental Leave. State employees and teachers shall be entitled to eight (8) weeks of parental leave “in connection with the placement of a child with the eligible employee for adoption.” This leave is a benefit additional to and different from annual and sick leave.
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For Adopted Children 3 and Under, parental leave is only available if the adoptive child is three years of age or younger at the time that he or she is placed with the eligible employee.
Natural Births
For natural births (or pregnancy losses), mothers get 8 weeks and fathers get 2 weeks of parental leave. Similarly, the Paid Parental Leave Act gives paid parental leave to two parents who are both eligible employees. (But only one gets the full 8 weeks; the other parent gets 2 weeks.)
We contacted several state agencies to check on their policies implementing the new law and the number of people taking advantage of it. At one agency, we found that there were in fact employees taking advantage of the new adoption leave allowances.
Want more info on the new adoption code? Check out this video: Adoption Code Changes (2024) in 2 Minutes
What Happens if Parents Won’t Consent to Grandparent Adoption?
