Last week’s article by GoLocalProv outlining the 50 school cafeterias with the highest number of health department violations found three EGSD cafeterias on the list – at East Greenwich High School, Cole Middle School and Eldredge Elementary.
Aramark did not respond to EG News’s request for a comment but Supt. Victor Mercurio put out this message on Friday:
This week GoLocal ran an article on health department food services inspections of schools in Rhode Island. The article referenced citations given to Eldredge, EGHS, and Cole Middle School. As is it has done in response to all of the recommendations cited by the GoLocalProv article in the review conducted in October, the school district has (as it did immediately after the issues were brought to its attention in October) and will continue to work with our vendor Aramark and facilities/maintenance staff to ensure that all of the schools in the district are state standard compliant. Student, faculty, and staff health and wellness are top priorities for the district. As such, while the particulars of the responses enacted by Aramark and the district will be discussed as an upcoming School Committee agenda item, I wanted to assure the members of our community in the interim that any substandard review of any of our facilities is unacceptable and that we have and will continue to work with our vendor Aramark to take aggressive steps to take any corrective action necessary to ensure cleanliness, compliance, and student safety.
Aramark will be at next Tuesday’s School Committee meeting (March 10) to discuss the situation. Here are more details about the violations – each school name is hyperlinked to its page on the R.I. Health Department website.
Visits from RI Dept. of Health in the past three years:
Oct. 22, 2014
5 violations, including for failing to have a food safety manager on site and a deli slicer that was in poor repair
Oct. 7, 2014 (by a 3rd party auditor)
4 violations, for old mouse droppings in a storeroom floor and milk crates stored on the floor instead of raised up at least 6 inches
March 25, 2014 (by a 3rd party auditor)
2 violations – for old mouse droppings in a storeroom floor and an improper defrosting method
Visits from RI Dept. of Health in the past three years:
Oct. 29, 2014
8 violations, including for a dirty can opener, lack of food labeling for items like flour that are out of their original packaging, and the use of single-use containers (such as yogurt containers) as scoops.
Oct. 7, 2014 (by a 3rd party auditor)
3 violations, including no thermometer in the freezer and a dirty can opener
March 25, 2014 (by a 3rd party auditor)
4 violations, including taco meat at 120 degrees instead of 135 degrees, and workers not wearing hair restraints properly.
Visits from RI Dept. of Health in the past three years:
Feb. 26, 2015
6 violations, including for improper handwashing signage, a dirty can opener, and salad dressing requiring refrigeration stored without it.
Oct. 15, 2014 (by a 3rd party auditor)
5 violations, including a sneeze guard on the salad bar that needed to be lower, a dirty soap dispenser and an entrance from the outside lacking a tight-fitting door.
April 2, 2014 (by a 3rd party auditor)
7 violations, including unclean non-food surfaces, an entrance from the outside lacking a tight-fitting door and dirt in the freezer
The other schools had fewer violations but here they are:
Hanaford had 2 violations on Oct. 14, 2014, and 3 violations on April 1, 2014
Frenchtown had 5 violations on Jan. 15, 2015, and 4 violations on Oct. 14, 2014, and 5 violations April 1, 2014
Meadowbrook had 4 violations on Oct. 14, 2014, and 2 violations April 1, 2014.
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