i know the law says somewhere that employers have to give people a break every four hours. but what’s the law corresponding to that for high schools?
You mean for the staff? - It would be the same I think.
no, for the students. sorry i didn’t clarify that.
Ah. Well, I assume that students are required to get a break along the same lines.
You should keep in mind that the 10 or so minutes between classes is probably considered a break, if that’s what you’re wondering.
darn. my school has five minute breaks between classes which are about an hour long each, a fifteen minute break after second period, and lunch after fourth. we’ve started this new detention thing where, instead of sepdning an hour after school writing sentences or whatever, we have to spend our lunchtime in the library with the principal, writing sentences. then, after everyone else’s lunch, we go to lunch (during what would be my 30 minute study hall). i was just wondering if this was legal.
Unless the principal is making you write the lines naked, while whipping you with a Cat-O-9-Tails, yah, it’s probably legal.
(Particularly with that 15 minute break after 2nd period.)
It’s legal.
My advice is to not get detention.
You’re getting as much break time as most lowlevel employees do. And I bet that the principal is just THRILLED to be spending his/her lunchtime supervising a bunch of delinquets.
This policy was probably put in place so that the students didn’t have to find alternative transportation on the days when they had detention. If you don’t like this policy, then, like Bricker, I advise you not to get detention. THAT’LL really show 'em!
I’m amazed the principal does it, instead of assigning a coach or something.
As long as you get a thirty minute meal break, there’s nothing illegal about it. I have yet to see a school where you didn’t get thirty minutes (at least) to eat, although the school itself is under no legal obligation to feed you.
Detention is inconvenient, yes. MOST forms of punishment involve inconvenience. At least, the ones that don’t involve physical pain.
I should probably make clear that I wasn’t necessarily calling gypsymoth3 a delinquet in my above post. What I meant was that most of the kids that I knew got detention were generally delinquets. Whether gypsymoth3 is a delinquet or not, I don’t know.
Right, you meant to call him a delinquent. 
Is correcting an Admin’s spelling a bannable offense yet?
My high school, before I left a few years ago, gave 22 minutes for lunch. I assume it’s still the same amount.
How many kids go to your school? My highschool (already graduated so…) had a separate 9th grade campus–well over a thousand kids–and had 4 principals/asst. principals. I’d never even seen the REAL principal. Study hall during lunch? My little brother is attending my old highscool and they have cut “detention” completely. Now it’s 3 demerits (the equivalent of a slap on the hand) and you go to saturday class. 2 saturday classes and it’s “AC,” or Alternative Center for three days to 12 days if it’s a series of serious offenses…then LONG TERM…then HIGH POINT…for our future criminals of america…5% (over 300) of the 10-12th grade campus attends “AC.” Looking back on it, I should of been Valedictorian…Salutatorian was great though, because I didn’t have to give a speech, YAY!
…22 minutes? Jeez, now THAT’s frickin’ nuts. Two minutes to get there from class, X minutes standing in line, and (22 - (X+2)) minutes to eat?
That seems a bit tight, somehow. I don’t even like the mere half hour lunch break the kids get where I work. Whatever happened to givin’ the kids a little TIME, for potato’s sake?
To actually answer the OP, this law is for hourly (non-exempt) employees. This would not apply to salaried (exempt) employees such as teachers or non-employess such as students.
Haj
There are other laws, though.
In Texas, for example, a teacher must be given a thirty minute lunch break, duty free. This means you can’t expect him/her to watch the kids in the cafeteria while he/she attempts to eat.
It does not, however, specify when that lunch break must BE, so you can find yourself eating lunch as early as nine a.m., or as late as three in the afternoon…
!!!
We get 4 minutes between classes (we have five a day, 65 minutes) and an hour lunch. Those 4 minutes are useless for anything other than making it to class, because we have two buildings, one on the next block over across a parking lot. They cut down our school year this year however, because of construction. Usually it is 5 minutes between classes and a 10 minute break between 2nd and 3rd.
At my old high school, we had two 2 1/2 hour classes a day, with a 15 minute break in the middle of each class, and an hour lunch. It was rather odd, it felt like elementary school recess.
I remember hearing that our fifteen minute snack (after 2nd period, just like the gypsymoth3’s) is not required by the state (in this case, California) and the school can take it away if they want to. Still, those 5 minutes probably do count as some kind of break.
In summer school, we had about 2 hours of class, then a 15 or 20 minute break (don’t remember exactly) then another 2 hours. Whether it’s legal or not, keeping kids in a classroom for more than 2 hours probably becomes counter-productive at some point, because they just get restless and don’t focus on their work. I mean, I can’t even focus for a whole hour if the class is really boring. But that’s another problem entirely.
Heh. My school (Home of the Rich, Spoiled Overacheivers) has 8 classes a day, with 5 minutes in between. It takes an average of about 4 minutes and 50 seconds to get to class, because the halls are so crowded. Lunch is optional (I’ve chosen to take another class each year rather than waste time on lunch). Lunch periods run from 3rd period (starts at 9:45-ish) to sixth period (starts at 12:15-ish). AFAIK, at least in NJ, there are no laws requiring breaks for students. I’ve also never heard of this ‘break between classes’ thing - is it just unsupervised time to hang out in the halls or what have you?
I do know, however, that here a lot of when teachers get lunch breaks, how many hours they need to work, etc, is controlled by the local teachers union. Just FWIW.
When I was in high school we had 5 minutes between classes.
Lunch was about 20 or 25 minutes. Many kids had about 3 minutes, literally, to wolf down their lunch after standing in line most of the time.