KANSAS CITY, Mo. – An NBC Action News Investigation uncovered dozens of metro schools that had problems in the cafeteria, but newly released documents identify even more area schools cited for serious health risks in the cafeteria.
The Kansas City Health Department handed over records citing seven additional schools it says it missed in our original open records request.
Our original report on metro health department inspections in 2007 and 2008 identified about 50 school kitchens that faced either state corrective action, citations for five or more critical violations in one inspection, or closure.
Click here to see complete list of schools with cafeteria violations.
The following seven metro schools were either closed or had five or more critical violations during that time period, but weren’t included in records released by the KCMO Health Department during our initial open records request.
Kansas City Academy
Lee A. Tolbert Community Academy
Manual Vo-Tech Cafeteria
Pembroke Hill
Benjamin Banneker Charter*
Hogan Preparatory Academy*
Holy Cross School*
Schools marked with an asterisk were ordered to close their kitchens because workers couldn't immediately correct the critical violations.
At 10 critical violations, the Kansas City School District’s Manual Vo-Tech tied for most critical violations in one inspection according to records released by area health departments.
This exceeded the largest number of violations from one inspection during the two-year period identified in records area health department previously provided the NBC Action News Investigators.
Fourteen other Kansas City School District schools made our original list for five or more violations or closures.
“I know that they made the corrections and certainly it would appear that there were some issues that needed to be addressed,” JoAnne DeShields, director of the district’s kitchens, said in our original report.
Two of KCMO's schools were recently recognized by the health department as being among the
Top 10 Cleanest School Kitchens in Kansas City.
Most of the schools on the newly released health department list of problem inspections were private, including Pembroke Hill which was the only other school officials identified to have 10 critical violations in one inspection.
"Pembroke Hill takes the health and safety of our students, faculty and staff very seriously,” said the school’s Carolyn Sullivan. “Most of the problems outlined in the Health Department's report dated March 3, 2008 were corrected on site that day.”
Sullivan said all the critical violations were resolved within days.
In all cases, the health department requires schools to correct critical violations to continue operating their kitchens.
The health department says it missed these seven schools in its original search because permit names didn't include the word school - which was how officials searched.
In the case from Pembroke Hill, for example, the school is listed by the private food service agency which provides its cafeteria services.
“In this particular situation, the name on the permit was Chartwells Ed. Food Services C/O Pembroke,” said KCMO Health Department spokesman Jeff Hershberger in a written statement. “As a result, it did not appear in the search for permits with school in the name.”
Schools are inspected two to three times annually, and all of the schools that made our list have had inspections where they performed better.
