[Janna Beau]

Hello-
I am looking for clarification please- currently we do not hire under 16 in Dubuque. Are any of you hiring guards at 15? What about slide attendants? i know we have gone over this in past discussions, but I am uncertain if by code they must be 16, or if we can hire younger.
Thank you!
janna

[Clark Bruno]

Hi Janna,

Here in Fort Dodge we hire at the age of 15 to be able to fill all of our open lifeguard spots. We use separate rotations for 15 year olds if we can, so that they never have to be on top of slides. If we only have one rotation we will alternate 15 year olds every other guard so that we can maintain a 16 year old at the top of the slides. The 15 year old will just skip those spots in the rotation and we rotate differently to make it fair.

15 year olds can only work specific times and amounts per day/week, so you just need to be mindful of that as well.

We also have talked about having our cashiers rotate in as slide attendants, but they do need to be CPR/First Aid certified I do believe.

[Ashley Bjork]

In North Liberty we hire 15 year old’s. We work rotation by having 15 year old’s work two rotations at bottom of slide so they do not have to work the top of slide. We just make sure there aren’t two 15 year old’s following each other in rotation.

[Anonymous]

In Mason City we hire 15 year old lifeguards, just have to watch their hours so they don’t reach over 80 hours (2 weeks) for child labor laws. Then like North Liberty we try to have at least an older person behind them and in front of them in the rotation.

Once they get to the top of the slides, then we have a 16+ year old either do a longer rotation there to cover for the 15 year that can’t be up there. When we have been short staffed, we’ve had our cashiers go up and do top of slides as well. They did do training as well just in case of an emergency.