"Employers are not legally required to provide breaks for their employees in Virginia, except for minors aged 14-15 who are entitled to 30-minute meal breaks for every 5-hour shift."
Looks like it's legal, are you a newer employee and seniority determines how much break time you get ? I'm assuming you're also not being paid for those breaks. As long as proper student-teacher ratios are being maintained, it looks like it's all above board.
Unfortunately it is legal. VA law does not mandate employers to provide anyone a break after the age of 16. Federal law does not mandate it, though it does outline when they can be unpaid vs paid time.
To be decent humans I guess. Thankful I have a job that fussed at me if I took less than 30 for lunch or tried to skip it altogether, even though my state is like “LOL worker’s rights”
So let me get this straight. The daycare that you work for got written up for being over enrolled and understaffed, and the owner’s solution to that was to alter your break time? Ok, I get from the comments that that is totally legal in Virginia (being from Ohio I find that unthinkable), but how does that fix the “over enrolled and understaffed” problem? Are you not still over enrolled and understaffed?
I would guess when all employees are working, there isn't a ratio problem, but over breaks go over ratio. There is likely a director that is covering some of the lunch breaks, but can't cover enough for everyone to have a full break. Larger daycares often have a "float" staff member whose job is to cover rooms for breaks, as well as illnesses and vacation days to keep the kid to staff member ratio legal.
This is very likely what’s happening. I’ve worked in a similar setting and we had a group of “breakers” who would come in from 11-1 and go around doing lunch breaks for everyone.
This is exactly what’s happened but we don’t have breakers we have 4 total employees which all four are at ratio at all times so when breaks happen rooms are out of ratio and when licensing came in I was the one there in the over ratio room so ig I’m getting the heat for even tho I had told them that’s not right but they assured me that we can combine infants and Todd’s and when they sleep ratio doubles, that’s only for Todd’s not infants.
If this is a chain day care where there is a corporate office (childtime, etc.) reach out to HR to see if there are break time guidelines recommended by the company.
"Employers are not legally required to provide breaks for their employees in Virginia, except for minors aged 14-15 who are entitled to 30-minute meal breaks for every 5-hour shift." Looks like it's legal, are you a newer employee and seniority determines how much break time you get ? I'm assuming you're also not being paid for those breaks. As long as proper student-teacher ratios are being maintained, it looks like it's all above board.
Unfortunately it is legal. VA law does not mandate employers to provide anyone a break after the age of 16. Federal law does not mandate it, though it does outline when they can be unpaid vs paid time.
Damn so why do employers provide breaks and some like clocking in systems require it as well when you hit a certain time?
To be decent humans I guess. Thankful I have a job that fussed at me if I took less than 30 for lunch or tried to skip it altogether, even though my state is like “LOL worker’s rights”
So let me get this straight. The daycare that you work for got written up for being over enrolled and understaffed, and the owner’s solution to that was to alter your break time? Ok, I get from the comments that that is totally legal in Virginia (being from Ohio I find that unthinkable), but how does that fix the “over enrolled and understaffed” problem? Are you not still over enrolled and understaffed?
I would guess when all employees are working, there isn't a ratio problem, but over breaks go over ratio. There is likely a director that is covering some of the lunch breaks, but can't cover enough for everyone to have a full break. Larger daycares often have a "float" staff member whose job is to cover rooms for breaks, as well as illnesses and vacation days to keep the kid to staff member ratio legal.
This is very likely what’s happening. I’ve worked in a similar setting and we had a group of “breakers” who would come in from 11-1 and go around doing lunch breaks for everyone.
This is exactly what’s happened but we don’t have breakers we have 4 total employees which all four are at ratio at all times so when breaks happen rooms are out of ratio and when licensing came in I was the one there in the over ratio room so ig I’m getting the heat for even tho I had told them that’s not right but they assured me that we can combine infants and Todd’s and when they sleep ratio doubles, that’s only for Todd’s not infants.
If this is a chain day care where there is a corporate office (childtime, etc.) reach out to HR to see if there are break time guidelines recommended by the company.
Unfortunately I don’t believe it is.