Catherwood LibraryILR School

Labor advocates are worried that many substitute teachers and other education workers who were given unemployment benefits during the pandemic are now being told to return payments. Workers like substitutes and bus drivers, whose school districts gave them “reasonable assurance” of work in the Fall, are being made to pay back their benefits. A senior staff attorney comments that “There was no way that [schools] could have provided reasonable assurance because the economic conditions were very poor. And there were a huge amount of uncertainties.” Many appeals are being filed, but not all are being won.