We never really know what is happening at our children's school unless we are physically there. This week I was given a look into the behavior of one of our local schools during lunch time. As a food allergy Mom I was scared.
I attended the Holiday Bazaar at one of the local grade schools, to sell Christmas crafts. I was not expecting to be placed in the cafeteria, but at launch time I really had my eyes opened.
I knew that the area has not been exposed to a large number of children with special food needs. I had been told that this school had food allergy policy's in place. You would never know it from what I witnessed.
When I arrived in the morning the cafeteria was full of children having breakfast. Mostly cereal from what I could tell. When breakfast was over and the children had gone off to class, I got to see the clean up. One of the lunch aids swept around and under the tables with a dust mop, while one of the kitchen staff wiped down the tables with a bucket of detergent water and a rag. Everything remained till lunch.
For todays' lunch the menu listed Corn Dog, Baked Beans, cheese stick, grapes, and apple slices. Later upon checking the posted schedule on the wall this was the lunch every other Wednesday for the whole school year.
When the lunch bell rang and the students lined up to enter the cafeteria, a student aid sat in a chair in the door way and dispensed a pump of hand sanitizer onto each child's hand. The students were then expected to rub this in and were then allowed in line to receive their meal trays.
They took their seats like soldiers in a mess hall, filling the first chair then the next and so on. When they became to loud one the aids blew their whistle at them. When the children needed help they raised their hands, and many times the item they needed help with, and an aid walked over to open what ever it was from a cheese stick, milk, or grapes, with no gloves on at all.
Allow me to explain some thing about these aids. When I first saw them in the morning I thought that they were janitors, they wore jeans and tee shirts, and were preforming janitorial services in the cafeteria. At lunch time one of the men donned a whistle on a string and they both put on small white aprons. The one resembled a gym coach in a tiny white apron.
When lunch was done they blew the whistle twice to get everyone's attention. Then there was clapping that the children repeated and one long whistle blow that signaled for the children to rise and proceed to another line to pour out their milk and clean off their trays. They were helped in these tasks by more student aids. Between classes a student aid wiped down each table with a single wet rag and a pie pan to catch crumbs.
After the last class of the day is seated the cafeteria aids folded up the table and sweep under them. The tables were then pushed out of the way and a small cleaning machine was run over the floor before they were returned to their same spots.
If your a food allergy Mom and made it this far your probably freaking out like I was. If your not a food allergy Mom please allow me to spell it out for you. Hand sanitizer does not kill food proteins, it kills some germs and the good bacteria that lives on your body. Hand sanitizer is 70% alcohol and should not be ingested. Cafeteria aids walking around with no gloves touching everyone's food, enough said, I hope. Wiping down all of the tables in the cafeteria with the same rag, just spreads food proteins around, and that at the end of lunch no one re-sterilized the tables.
No where did I see an allergy free area, but this would have also meant that someone would have been eating alone.
Allow me to explain some thing about these aids. When I first saw them in the morning I thought that they were janitors, they wore jeans and tee shirts, and were preforming janitorial services in the cafeteria. At lunch time one of the men donned a whistle on a string and they both put on small white aprons. The one resembled a gym coach in a tiny white apron.
When lunch was done they blew the whistle twice to get everyone's attention. Then there was clapping that the children repeated and one long whistle blow that signaled for the children to rise and proceed to another line to pour out their milk and clean off their trays. They were helped in these tasks by more student aids. Between classes a student aid wiped down each table with a single wet rag and a pie pan to catch crumbs.
After the last class of the day is seated the cafeteria aids folded up the table and sweep under them. The tables were then pushed out of the way and a small cleaning machine was run over the floor before they were returned to their same spots.
If your a food allergy Mom and made it this far your probably freaking out like I was. If your not a food allergy Mom please allow me to spell it out for you. Hand sanitizer does not kill food proteins, it kills some germs and the good bacteria that lives on your body. Hand sanitizer is 70% alcohol and should not be ingested. Cafeteria aids walking around with no gloves touching everyone's food, enough said, I hope. Wiping down all of the tables in the cafeteria with the same rag, just spreads food proteins around, and that at the end of lunch no one re-sterilized the tables.
No where did I see an allergy free area, but this would have also meant that someone would have been eating alone.
I have a dear friend who's children are currently attend this school, and aside for the hand sanitizer her daughters chief complaint is the whistle, apparently this tool has made the children fell like dogs, but they like the clapping very much.
After seeing this display, I hope to visit my own school for a day to see just what is happening there for lunch, before my daughter starts school.
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