Roaches, rodents and too-warm tunafish have all been found in area school cafeterias in the past year, and many schools have failed to meet a federal law requiring the local health department to inspect cafeterias twice a year.
At Forestville, Md.’s Suitland High School, a 2007 complaint to the health department charged that there were mice and roaches infesting the cafeteria. There had only been one inspection recorded with the health department in the previous two years.
Two days after the complaint was lodged, an inspector showed up. “Mouse droppings were detected on food service line, hot food line, and kitchen hot line prep station inside below storage cabinets,” the inspector’s report said. Dead and alive roaches were found near the snack line.
Dozens of other cafeterias have been slapped with violations ranging from improper handwashing to clogged drains.
A January 2008 inspection at Bowie High School to address a previous “mouse infestation problem” revealed continued rodent problems at the “Bulldog Snack Bar” and the “multipurpose cafeteria.” The file did not contain a follow-up report.
An October 2007 complaint citing “dead and alive rodents found in room 120” at Oxon Hill’s John Hanson Montessori Middle School was followed up one day later, when inspectors found that “one live rodent was observed in a glue trap” beneath a refrigerator.
At Fort Washington’s Oxon Hill Middle School, live roaches were found in cabinets underneath the serving line in March 2007. At Bowie’s Benjamin Tasker Middle School, there were dead ones.
Since 2007, at least 15 of Prince George’s 58 middle and high schools have been home to various vermin, and at Nicholas Orem Middle School, two snakes. At least four of those schools showed no sign of a timely follow-up.
The federal law requiring inspections — a part of the National School Lunch Program that subsidizes cafeterias for each meal sold — went into effect in 2005. By 2006-07, 137 of 214 schools in Prince George’s were inspected fewer than two times. In neighboring Montgomery County, 101 of 204 schools were recorded as having been inspected fewer than two times.
In the Virginia suburbs, 21 schools received fewer than two inspections. In D.C., 25 schools also failed to record the required inspections.
The numbers improved in the 2007-08 school year, according to local health officials. In that year, 17 failed to meet the mark in Prince George’s, and seven in Montgomery County.
The majority of vermin violations were remedied, according to the reports. But when students become wary of school food, “They tend not to participate in the food service program,” said Marcia Rubin, director of research for the Ohio-based American School Health Association.
Despite a spotty history of recording inspections, Montgomery County has largely avoided major problems. In 22 years with the schools’ food services division, director Kathy Lazor said there has never been a kitchen closed, an infestation or a food-borne illness. Lazor said internal inspections are completed several times yearly.
