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Unpaid work time

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S

Susan Do

Guest
What is the name of your state? Maryland

In my retirement I have taken two part time jobs within the same school system, one as an adult education "teacher" and the other as an elementary "tutor". In my 1 week old tutor job there is a small amount of planning time included in the work week but I am being told that I will be expected to work additional unpaid time to complete the planning and preparation.

For most of the adult classes there is an informal agreement with the department head, class by class, to report more hours than the class length as a way of being compensated for some preparation time. The extra time, especially with a new class, does not cover the prep time.

Both jobs require time card reporting for the hours worked and do not have contracts. I never represented myself as an experienced teacher or as an expert in all of the subjects and the preparation can be significant when compared to the class hours.

Is this legal? If it is not legal and I want to bring the issue out in the open should I show up unprepared and explain why or prepare on my own time and submit a time card for the hours worked?

Is a school system subject to different laws than those I learned in my corporate management career? I am assuming these are non-exempt jobs although I haven't actually asked. Can a part time job be exempt?

Sorry for the length and number of questions here but I'm totally pereplexed.

Thanks for the help.
 


cbg

I'm a Northern Girl
Yes, it is possible for a part time job to be exempt. It is the duties of the job that define exempt or non-exempt, not the hours.

Likewise it is possible for an employee in an exempt job to fill out time cards. Nothing in the law, despite what a good many people appear to think, prevents an employer from tracking the hours worked by an exempt employee as long as they are paid their full salary every week.

Finally, the public sector, which includes public schools, often does have different laws than the private sector. Many public sector jobs are union, but even when they are not, there are often written agreements and municipal contracts that govern those issues that are, in the private sector, handled by employment law.
 

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