Jul 2, 2008 8:07 pm US/Eastern
CBS4 I-Team's "Cruddy Cafeterias" Part Of Fla. Law
On July 1st, Fla. Public Schools Must Post Health Inspections
MIAMI (CBS4) ―
Under a new state law signed by Gov. Crist, 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 schools' websites.
CBS4 Consumer Investigator Al Sunshine had 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 Sunshine 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.
Those
CBS4 I-Team Investigations 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.
(© MMVIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
