WESTFORD -- The School Department has decided to dispose of all food and food-related products it had been keeping at a storage facility on Town Farm Road after a Health Department inspection found numerous health and safety violations.
That decision, announced by Westford Superintendent of Schools Everett "Bill" Olsen Jr. at the conclusion of last night's Board of Health meeting, comes in the wake of an investigation earlier in the month by Health Department inspector Rae Dick.
Board of Health Chairman Zac Cataldo said last night the investigation stemmed from 70 students missing school on the same day earlier this month and was undertaken solely to make sure it was not related to a food-borne illness.
During her inspection, Dick asked about the School Department's food-storage facility on Town Farm Road, otherwise known as "The Barn." That facility is where the School Department stored food and supplies for each of the district's schools that could not fit in the kitchens of the individual schools.
Dick, who attended last night's meeting, shared the results of her inspection. She said she found evidence of rodent droppings and stains on the floor. She also found no permit for the storage area, no pest-management program on site, uncovered walls with insulation hanging from them, rodent infestation in the ceiling, food-security issues such as unlocked doors and freezer doors that jam and did not have a handle.
At its March 14 meeting, the Board of Health voted to embargo the food stored at "The Barn." The following day, board members inspected it and took pictures to document their investigation.
The complete article is available on the attached file or by going to the Lowell Sun website by clicking on the title of the article.
I been informed by school personnel that over 7o students became ill.
I was also told that the problems at the Barn have been known several members of the School Committee for at least 3 years.
What was the value of the food that had to be destroyed?
I wonder who the fall guy is going to be. Of course, the students will have to pay higher prices to make up for the monetary losses.
Just another example of a Not so Well run institution aka Westford School System. The food director had never been in the barn. Once upon a time in Westford, the School Committee did an annual walk through all the buildings.
I guess that walking through buildings and looking for mundane problems is below the dignity of the socially elite members of the School Committee.
Olsen stated the value of the food was about $12K plus they hired a food consultant (i.e., spin master) to examine the food that the BoH ordered to be discarded. Olsen further claimed that Westford has an "excellent food service program". I doubt anyone takes the fall for this when Olsen isn't even acknowledging that a problem exists. This clearly must have been going on for some time. Rodent droppings, rice bags chewed open by rodents, rodent urine, expired food, transportation of frozen food in unrefrigerated trucks, etc. are all pretty serious violations that indicate the school staff didn't care that they were compromising the food supply and putting our children in harms way.
Westford —
Officials in Westford’s School Department and Board of Health have taken steps to quell an uproar over how food that is fed to students has been stored over the years.
But at least one Board of Health official is terming the discovery an “egregious finding.”
A fast-breaking news story this week revealed that perishable and non-perishable items were being stored in a Town Farm Road building inhabited by rodents. Some perishable food items, such as jumbo bags of rice were discovered on the floor. Some food packages showed signs of having been chewed by a rodent, according to a report filed by a food safety consultant hired by the School Department to evaluate the storage system.
“Personally, I felt that it was an egregious finding when I walked into the barn that day and saw what I saw,” said Zac Cataldo, chairman of the Board of Health who visited the building after learning of the situation. Cataldo noted that state food codes require that a certified professional oversee stored food, secure it safely and maintain logs that chronicle delivery dates.
“To me,” said Cataldo, “the most shocking and egregious thing was that the building was not secured. There was no security in the building so you couldn’t know if the food had been tampered with.”
In response, Olsen implemented a new system for receiving food deliveries that bypasses central storage altogether. School officials will now send food items to each of the town’s nine school buildings instead of the Town Farm Road building.
This week, media outlets broke the news that on March 14, Board of Health agent Rae Dick had discovered rodent droppings in a building used for storing food prepared and served in the town’s school cafeterias to over 5,000 students.
That night at a regularly scheduled Board of Health meeting, Sandra Collins, the town’s director of health services, informed Board of Health members of Dick’s discovery and the building was immediately embargoed for the next 10 days, as permitted by state law, All food and ancillary items remain inside the building. The Board of Health issued a temporary permit to store newly delivered paper and plastic products, such as napkins and forks and spoons, inside the Millennium Building, which houses school administration.
“Safety and confidence is the primary concern,” said Olsen.
He said he will attend the next Board of Health meeting and report on the new food storage system that is now in place. Cataldo said details are being ironed out, but the meeting will take place in mid-April.
The controversy began in early March when a nurse at Blanchard School notified the Board of Health that about 70 students were out sick with a stomach virus. The notice triggered a visit by Dick to the school, who as a matter of course, asked about frozen food storage. The kitchen manager mentioned that food such as bread was brought over from “the barn,” according to a March 25 letter written by Dick and provided to the Eagle.
Collins and Board of Health member Sue Hanly said they were both unaware that the building at 35 Town Farm Road existed or was being used for food storage. A health agent inspects each school cafeteria twice a year, said Cataldo.
“I’ve been on the board for 11 years and I didn’t know it existed,” he said of the building. I talked to staff members and they didn’t know it existed. I talked to other board members and they didn’t know it existed.”
Olsen said the building was equipped with a walk-in freezer about 35 years ago and had been designated as a food storage facility prior to his arrival as a town employee some 25 years ago.
Patricia Donahue, the School Department’s director of food services, a 20-year employee, was unavailable for comment.
While Dick’s inspection turned up a number of health and safety issues with the way the School Department was storing food, it did not find conclusive evidence that the viral illness plaguing students at the Blanchard School in early March was connected.
“In the process of doing the investigation with the food, there was no verification that the illness was related to the food,” said Collins.
The only way to be 100 percent certain that the two events were unrelated, however, would be to test stool samples, Collins said.
On March 28, the Board of Health met with Olsen and Donahue to decide what to do with the food and other items locked inside the building.
“It was decided to throw it way,” said Cataldo, who added that school officials are hiring a contractor to dispose of it properly. A Board of Health staff person will be present to ensure its safe disposal.
“We said we would very willingly comply with their direction,” said Olsen.
Michele Lee, of Westford-based Food Service Solutions, who produced a March 22 report evaluating the Town Farm facility, could not be reached for comment.
Lee’s report noted that there were mice droppings in the building’s insulation, the floor, and the exterior surfaces of food cases. Bird droppings and pellets were limited to three cases of paper goods. There were no signs of roaches, moths, mealworms, or rats, according to Lee’s report. There was no evidence of pest activity in the freezer and the food was observed to be frozen solid, according to Lee.
Among a long list of recommendations to bring the building up to code, she called for a lock to be installed on the freezer door, an alarm installed in the building to alert food handlers of a power outage, and routine inspections by a licensed pest control operator.
If all the schools receive food from the same spot but Blanchard is the only school with 70 children out at the same time, did anyone consider that maybe the problem is at the Blanchard? I realize conditions at the storage site were horrible but there was no mention of other schools having unusually high absences. Just a thought.
Either way. those conditions were deplorable and they didn't even have a permit to store food at that site.
Maybe something good will come of this. Like the schools taking advantage of the Farm to School program to do more than just buy apples in the fall, and providing kids with more nutritious lunches than mystery meat nachos with processed cheese sauce and three different carbohydrates/no vegetables. Ew.
The main tool in a cafeteria worker's arsenal should NEVER be a box cutter.
As of a few minutes ago there is a very large dumpster parked in front of the building thats filled with the questionable food. Your hard earned Tax dollars being carefully spent? We should send for Jamie Oliver and start fresh (no pun intended).
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