School food
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- September
- 17
In today’s editorial, Safe food 101, we looked at health code violations in school cafeterias.
John Stoughton, a senior public health sanitarian with the Rockland Health Department, has been in charge of regulating food safety compliance for 28 years. He says that for the most part, Rockland’s schools have a good track record.
Why? Stoughton believes there are several reasons Rockland’s schools are often in compliance, or have problems that are easily fixable:
- They often have a “static staff,” or little turnover among the lunch ladies and gentlemen. They all know their jobs and their
duties because they have been there a long time. - Cafeterias have limited hours, some serve breakfast, and then they all, of course, serve lunch. They are then closed, so there’s plently of uninterrupted to clean, and keep everything maintained.
- Rockland also has mandatory food safety training through the health department—and has since 1978, making it one of the first counties in New York state to mandate such training. (Westchester mandates the training, too.) Stoughton noted that though only one worker has to come, many schools send a large number of their cafeteria staff, and some schools send all their cafeteria workers, a smart move. The 5-hour course is free, and covers the basics of safe food handling (keeping food at proper temperature, wearing gloves, etc.).
This entry was posted
on Thursday, September 17th, 2009 at 7:08 am by Nancy Cutler.
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