School Cafeterias Lack Inspections
According to a USA Today investigation, more than 26,000 U.S. schools lack safety inspections, putting the school children of America at risk. Poor safety standards and measures were found in schools and school systems as well.
For example, a school cafeteria worker in North Dakota in 2005 had spent a weekend ill, experiencing diarrhea and vomiting. On Monday, the worker returned to her job at the school cafeteria and neglected to wear gloves as she prepared food for that day.
The next day, students began to feel sick. And within 48 hours, 52 students and 8 faculty members had become ill, experiencing the same unpleasant symptoms as the cafeteria worker. A state health investigation determined that it was an outbreak of norovirus, which causes severe stomach flu symptoms. The cafeteria worker who hadn’t worn gloves apparently contaminated lettuce that she had been preparing.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, norovirus caused at least one third of the 23,000 reported food-borne illness cases reported in schools from 1998-2007. Last year, more than 8,000 schools did not have any kitchen inspections performed at all. Thousands of other schools failed or dismissed a requirement of the Child Nutrition Act that calls for twice yearly cafeteria inspections.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture acknowledged that enforcement of these requirements is nearly impossible. The mandates are part of the School Lunch Program, of which almost every school in the U.S. receives food from as part of the program.
Additionally federal data reveals that in eight states more than half of the schools failed to meet the requirements for at least 2 yearly inspections during the 2007-2008 school season. Two of the eights states to share this distinction are California and New York – two of the most populous states in the nation. And in the state of Maine, less than 1 percent of school met the safety inspection requirements that year.
