Senate Bill 579 expands Labor Code Section 230.8, providing additional circumstances under which employers with 25 or more employees must provide school or child care activities leave. Beginning January 1, 2016, employees may take leave of up to 40 hours per year, not to exceed 8 hours per month, to find, enroll and re-enroll a child in school or with a licensed child care provider, and to handle certain child care emergencies and school emergencies that prohibit the child from attending or require that the child be picked up from school. The leave will extend to a parent, guardian, stepparent, foster parent, grandparent, and to an employee who stands in loco parentis to a child. Employers are permitted to require the employee to provide documentation from the school or the child care provider regarding the child-related activity.

SB 579 also amends Labor Code Section 233, known as the kin care law, to permit employees to use kin care for the purposes set forth in California’s Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Families Act of 2014, also known as the paid sick leave law, and to give “family member” the same meaning as provided in the sick leave law.