Posted on 10/11/2007 7:15:55 AM PDT by Virginia Ridgerunner
MAHWAH, N.J. (CBS) ― Bergen County parents are floored by a new school lunch policy. Their children were forced to eat their lunch on the floor.
Mahwah School Superintendent Charles Montesano won't let CBS 2 HD in his high school, specifically anywhere near the floors inside. Yet, that's exactly where students have been eating their lunch.
That's right. Nearly 1,000 students attend classes at Mahwah High School daily, and at lunchtime, a good majority of them are on the floor, as seen in pictures obtained exclusively by CBS 2 HD.
(snip)
Renowned microbiologist Dr. Philip Tierno warns 80 percent of all infectious diseases are spread through contact. So when a child touches the floor to sit, then touches a sandwich, whatever is on the floor can then be ingested.
"I would categorize it as stupid," Tierno said. "I would characterize it as primitive, and the scourge of third world countries.
(snip)
Even the local health department decries eating on the floor. In a letter they sent to the school, they call the practice, "very unsanitary." Yet in order for Mahwah High School to lengthen its teaching time, they opted to push all 1,000 students through a single, 43-minute lunch period.
"This allows teachers to go into greater depth in their discussions," Superintendent Montesano said.
The school would not release their own specific results from bacterial swab tests, but a parent forwarded those results sent home Wednesday, confirming the presence of dangerous pathogens like E. coli and enterococcus found in feces.
Since our interview, the school says it forbids the floor dining, opting instead for gym bleachers and other seating.
(Excerpt) Read more at wcbstv.com ...
No, they're saying they don't have enough tables and chairs to feed them all at the same time, so some have to eat on the floor in order to accommodate all the students.
Carolyn
Daycare centers are the major disease transmission points in our society today.
Grade schools and up aren’t quite as bad, because the students are toilet-trained.
How do children EVER learn to eat in a 5 Star Restaurant? They don’t because most parents don’t know how.
Ok, I am not getting it. So what they tell the kids to sit on the floor to eat their lunch.
Have they never been camping, a picnic, to the beach? Really what is the big deal?
To be honest, I probably wouldn’t want my child having to eat on the floor on a regular basis, but I don’t get the big deal either. Germs are all around us and I’ve also heard trying to be too clean is not a good idea. My dad grew up in pretty unsanitary conditions during the depression and I swear that man could survive an attack with anthrax or smallpox.
The story says they’ve got picnic tables outside for the student’s to use—are those cleaned regularly? I’ve found that outdoor picnic tables that rarely get cleaned. Birds sh!t on them, people use them, and they don’t get washed down. What if you touch the bench of a lunch table—someone’s butt has been sitting there and then you touch your sandwich. You touch door knobs and some people don’t wash their hands after going to the bathroom. I’ve always wondered what’s on those serving utensils at buffet type restaurants. You have person after person using them, you touch it, then eat your roll with your hands.
I try to be fairly sanitary, but I try not to get carried away with it or too freaked out by GERMS. It’s all around us, on us, and in us.
Remember pik-niks
“Not only that, but sometimes we had to eat dirt, and we were thankful.”
((sob))......I had to walk ten miles to school in the rain with no shoes and a bad hip. When I got hungry I just picked up some dirt along the way and had a snack. I also liked pine cones and the occasional rose bush........times were good then....
I'm really surprised at some of the posters on this thread. If you pay your school property taxes, would you not expect the schools to set up appropriate lunch schedules or provide decent eating facilities for your kids to have their lunches so that they would not have to sit in the dirty floor? I'm perplexed...
P.S. Just thinking back to my grade school days and we often had to sit on the floor in a classroom to watch a film. We would go to the gym for an assembly and had to sit on the floor. Now I didn’t like it because it was uncomfortable and it always cheesed me off that the teachers were sitting in chairs, but no one thought about it being unsanitary. I don’t ever remember washing my hands in school either—or being encouraged to do so.
But it’s pretty clear they’re sitting on the floor - most of them, not all - because they’re shrinking the TOTAL lunch allotment. They’re having only 1 lunch period for everyone instead of 3 for 1/3 each, e.g.
So, they couldn’t eat in the rooms (if you require a “free-time” lunch) because those rooms are used only for class time. They’re not simply “open” rooms at lunch.
You have a point. I have also heard but can not verify that NJ spends 14K per student per year, so you would think that.......man, sorry talking about public school.......
I think most of us just aren’t that worked up over it. It’s not that big a deal - I seriously doubt diseases will be spread much faster from sitting on the floor. The bigger threat as far as that is concerned is so many more people crammed into the same area.
But yes, generally, I’d prefer they had things set so children didn’t have to sit on the floor. But I’m not scared to death over it. Again, I’d be more concerned with “overcrowding” for health reasons.
And it’s common in elementary and even later schooling to have the entire grade sit on the carpeted floor together to have a “general assembly” of some sort. Having food may be a different component, but it’s not that big a leap.
The station should have mentioned the picnic angle in their reporting, but conveniently left it out.
My guess is that eating on grass is much more sanitary than eating on a school floor.
Regardless, the school - and the school alone - is at fault for their own problems and bad planning. That’s why they’re at where they’re at now.
As for students having picnics rather than eating inside the school, it’s now getting too cold in Jersey to consider eating outside anyway.
Besides, if the school tried that, they would get blamed for making kids sick in a new way.
They could be, or at least some could be, in the absence of other factors.
“Germs are all around us and I’ve also heard trying to be too clean is not a good idea.”
It’s finally coming out just these last few months. Thank God.
When you’re too sanitary, especially a child’s system which needs to “learn” its environment and how to fight it, you never adjust to minor levels of germs, toxins, other disturbances. Hence, as you’re older, you’re more prone to disease from the least exposure to it.
That’s not good “survival of the fittest”.
And all this should’ve been common sense, from what I see.
“Luxury! MY father made us lick the road clean with my tongue, then sliced us in half with a dull butter knife and danced halleleujah above us!”
Well...do they MAKE the kids WASH their hands BEFORE they eat? If not, what’s the problem? It’s not like they’re serving the lunch ON THE FLOOR.....they are just SITTING on the floor while they are eating their lunch.
If what you say is true.....my grandson ought to live forever.....
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.