About a third of public school buildings inspected in Harlem last year were cited for “critical” health violations in their cafeterias, including evidence of mice, roaches, filth flies and poor contaminate protection for food and supplies.
The New York City Department of Health found the infractions at dining facilities in 21 of 62 school buildings inspected in the neighborhood over the past 12 months. Parents weren’t told of the conditions.
Shamare Holliday, whose son attends P.S. 38 in East Harlem, said she was unaware of the four critical violations — out of nine total infractions — for which the school was cited.
“The school board hasn’t sent any emails about it,” she said skeptically. “That’s not good at all.”
The Department of Education serves roughly 10 million meals each year at public school cafeterias in Harlem. The law requires the health department to conduct at least two unannounced inspections of school buildings each school year.
However, not all violations carry the same weight. A 2016 health department publication, “What to Expect When You’re Inspected: A Guide for Food Service Operators,” explains that critical violations are more likely than general ones to contribute to foodborne illnesses.
The four Harlem public schools with the most critical violations were:
- Frederick Douglass Academy: 10 violations (4 critical)
- P.S. 38 Roberto Clemente: 9 violations (4 critical)
- P.S. 146 Anna M. Short: 7 violations (3 critical)
- P.S. 007 Samuel Stern: 6 violations (3 critical)
Inspectors found roaches and mice at P.S. 007 and Frederick Douglass Academy, and mice at P.S. 146. Filth flies were evident at P.S. 38, which lacked a food protection certificate by a manager or supervisor, among other deficiencies.
Some parents reacted with nonchalance. “My daughter doesn’t eat their lunch – she brings her own lunch,” said Angel Morales, as he picked her up from Samuel Stern, where he was a student in the 1980s. “I’m pretty sure every parent would be concerned, but what can we do to change that?”
Other parents — none of them aware of the school cafeteria inspections or results — responded with disbelief that turned to alarm.
Danielle Anthony, who recently enrolled her daughter at Roberto Clemente, said schools should inform parents about food violations. “But they won’t, because it’s going to cause too much chaos.”
She said schools need more funding to maintain their cafeterias but, like Morales, feels resigned to the gap between what parents want and what they have learned to expect.
Restaurants are required by law to display health inspection ratings for consumers to see. There is no such requirement for school cafeterias, nor are they required to inform parents about violations.
Ali Guilarte, whose son attends Samuel Stern, said it will be the institution’s fault if a child contracts a foodborne illness. “I, for my part, will send food to my son from now on,” Guilarte said in a text message.
Public schools are required to take immediate steps to resolve violations. To see if a violation has been corrected, parents can look up a cafeteria inspection report under “Free Student Meals” on each school’s profile page on the NYC Public Schools website.
The school system employs two internal teams of inspectors who visit each of the system’s 1,596 schools (and 274 charter schools) annually to monitor compliance with food safety procedures, said Jenna Lyle, a spokeswoman for the Department of Education.
Inspectors assign a health score after their inspections, based on the type and severity of violations, according to the 2016 guide. Neither the data nor the uploaded inspection results reveal the overall inspection score. The report will also provide the same description of a violation code, whether inspectors found two roaches or two dozen.
“All violations are taken extremely seriously,” Lyle said. “Every critical violation is immediately addressed.”
But uploaded inspection records for Samuel Stern showed that the inspection conducted in May, flagging roaches and mice, was still marked as “pending corrective actions” months later.
At Anna M. Short, a “resolved” problem with mice found in January was flagged again in June. Profile records fail to reflect the latest inspection that flagged evidence of mice in August.
Anthony, the parent of a daughter at Roberto Clemente, said she accepted that inspections would find some health violations at school cafeterias.
“You’re not going to get perfectly clean anywhere,” she said. “This is New York, baby.”
About the author(s)
Anusha Subramanian, originally from Mumbai and San Francisco, is a data journalist at the Columbia Journalism School.