Question about working unschooling teens
tedescoshannon
My daughter is 14...will be 15 in Jan. She has been an assistant instructor at the dojang she learns at for years without pay. Now her instructor wants her to not only run classes but run the office with pay. Which is a huge opportunity for her. Hands on learning how to run a business. But there seem yo be all kinds of labor laws that try to stop this. Has anyone here been in this position? What have you done?
Sandra Dodd
-=-. But there seem yo be all kinds of labor laws that try to stop this. Has anyone here been in this position? What have you done?-=-
Find the labor laws in your state (or wherever you are). In New Mexico it would be legal. Some other places, maybe not.
Kirby worked part time at 14. Marty worked full time from late-16 through 17 into early 18. (He applied for part time, and the put him in full time, and we went with it "for a while" and it ended up lasting 16 months). The laws here have to do with "school nights," in part. They can't work late if there's school the next day. So I wrote a letter explaining that our homeschooling was flexible and we could choose our own 180 legal school days around the work schedule. Marty never worked at night, though, and Kirby only worked late on Fridays and Saturdays (in a gaming shop that was working around school schedules already).
The general knowledge was that kids can't work before they're 16, except at Dion's (a pizza place here that "hires early," but looking directly at the laws, the age was 14. It was another case of school tradition trumping actual laws, and of "what everybody knows" not being the same as what was true. :-)
But there are other places where it's not legal.
Another thing you could look into would be whatever it's called there for a student to have a job and get credit for that. I don't even know the terminology in New Mexico anymore. But it could be part of her education in a kind of formal way (if necessary, if anyone inquired, which I doubt they would). You could call it all sort of school-sounding things.
If the dojang needs her more than 18 or 20 hours or whatever part time is and if the law says no, maybe she could be paid for that, or paid more per hour for the legal number of hours to cover the others. More like a salary, perhaps (as a suggestion to the guy), or a scholarship or grant (because he'll need to call it something for his own record keeping and taxes).
Sandra
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Find the labor laws in your state (or wherever you are). In New Mexico it would be legal. Some other places, maybe not.
Kirby worked part time at 14. Marty worked full time from late-16 through 17 into early 18. (He applied for part time, and the put him in full time, and we went with it "for a while" and it ended up lasting 16 months). The laws here have to do with "school nights," in part. They can't work late if there's school the next day. So I wrote a letter explaining that our homeschooling was flexible and we could choose our own 180 legal school days around the work schedule. Marty never worked at night, though, and Kirby only worked late on Fridays and Saturdays (in a gaming shop that was working around school schedules already).
The general knowledge was that kids can't work before they're 16, except at Dion's (a pizza place here that "hires early," but looking directly at the laws, the age was 14. It was another case of school tradition trumping actual laws, and of "what everybody knows" not being the same as what was true. :-)
But there are other places where it's not legal.
Another thing you could look into would be whatever it's called there for a student to have a job and get credit for that. I don't even know the terminology in New Mexico anymore. But it could be part of her education in a kind of formal way (if necessary, if anyone inquired, which I doubt they would). You could call it all sort of school-sounding things.
If the dojang needs her more than 18 or 20 hours or whatever part time is and if the law says no, maybe she could be paid for that, or paid more per hour for the legal number of hours to cover the others. More like a salary, perhaps (as a suggestion to the guy), or a scholarship or grant (because he'll need to call it something for his own record keeping and taxes).
Sandra
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Robin Bentley
It depends where you are. In Washington state, 14-17 year-olds can
work in non-agricultural jobs with limited hours for pay (and a
variance can be applied for, for increased hours).
Check your teen labor laws in your state or province to see what might
be possible.
work in non-agricultural jobs with limited hours for pay (and a
variance can be applied for, for increased hours).
Check your teen labor laws in your state or province to see what might
be possible.
> My daughter is 14...will be 15 in Jan. She has been an assistant
> instructor at the dojang she learns at for years without pay. Now
> her instructor wants her to not only run classes but run the office
> with pay. Which is a huge opportunity for her. Hands on learning how
> to run a business. But there seem yo be all kinds of labor laws that
> try to stop this. Has anyone here been in this position? What have
> you done?