Jun 5, 2008 7:54 pm US/Eastern
Cruddy Cafeterias Report Leads To Nationwide Probe
Probe Will Look At How Fed. Gov't Sets Food Safety Standards
Starting July 1st, Fla. Public Schools Must Post Health Inspections
MIAMI (CBS4) ―
It's a tough question for parents, teachers and students alike. How healthy is the food inside some of our school cafeterias?
CBS4 Consumer Investigator Al Sunshine has been investigating this issue for several years. Health inspectors have routinely found potentially serious sanitation violations that parents didn't know about.
The disturbing discoveries made inside these "cruddy cafeterias' has not only led to a change in Florida law, but also triggered a full probe into school cafeteria safety nationwide.
When Al first started investigating, he uncovered potentially serious health violations in local school cafeterias. State health inspectors even found rats in filthy facilities and it turns out that some local school cafeterias were such a threat to the health and safety of students, they were shut down until they cleaned up all of their problems. And it was all being hidden from parents.
"We can't get to everything, we can only get to some of the schools some of the times," Miami-Dade Health Department's Trevor Cook told
CBS4's Al Sunshine.
Those
CBS4 I-Team Investigations have prompted a full national probe by the Government Accountability Office in Washington.
"Al Sunshine did an investigation that exposed a tremendous problem with school cafeterias," said Representative Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-FL).
Wasserman-Schultz, a South Florida Congresswoman, pushed for a full nationwide investigation of school cafeteria sanitation after the
I-Team Investigation found local cafeterias were ignoring federal food safety laws.
"There were a frightening number of school cafeterias in South Florida that were wholly deficient, they're violating Federal Law and ignoring it," said Wasserman-Schultz.
Sources within the Government Accountability Office confirm it will look at how the federal government sets food safety standards, but never actually checks the sanitation at our school cafeterias, that's usually left to the state health department.
GAO investigators will also look at how schools keep their cafeteria inspection reports hidden from parents which is in violation of both state and federal law.
"They are examining the compliance rate of school cafeterias and when they come back we can hold the school districts' feet to the fire," explained Wasserman-Schultz.
The GAO investigation is scheduled to start this fall. In addition, under a new state law that's waiting for the governor's signature, effective July 1st, all public schools in Florida will not only be required to post their health inspections where parents can see them, they'll also be required to post them on the schools' website for everyone to see.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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