The OC Weekly has posted a very disturbing new post about the widening food safety scandal at the Santa Ana Unified School District. This time an insider at the SAUSD has alleged that food that should have been recalled, due to the threat of salmonella, was possibly served to our kids! We previously posted about the SAUSD’s disposal of hundreds of pounds of food here.
Here are a few excerpts from the new OC Weekly article:
On October 10, school districts across the country (including Santa Ana Unified) received a letter from David Thomas, vice president of quality assurance at J.M. Smuckers. In it, he warned customers that the company was pulling packages of the company’s Unscrutables peanut butter and jelly sandwiches made specifically for public-school lunches due to possible salmonella contamination, and urged districts who had already received such packages to do the same immediately.
“Please immediately examine your inventory and quarantine product subject to this recall,” he wrote. “We request that you destroy any affected product that remains in your inventory.”
But SAUSD officials in charge of food must’ve missed that memo. Sources told the Weekly that despite the warning, Uncrustables were delivered to schools and served by workers to students for two days after Thomas’ memo. It wasn’t until Oct. 12 that the directive came down to stop the practice: an email obtained by the Weekly shows field supervisor Artemisa Ayon writing “As of today, October 12, 2012, we are NOT (underline and caps hers) using ANY peanut butter product.” Ayon sent this email in the afternoon, though, meaning students could’ve possibly been exposed to three days of recalled food products.
Commenters at the OC Weekly are placing the blame on Mark Chavez, the SAUSD’s Director of Food Services. You can email him at mark.chavez@sausd.us. He is assisted by Lupita Vidal-Ramirez, Administrative Secretary. Her number is (714) 431-1909 and you can email here here: lupita.vidal@sausd.us.
Google Salmonella outbreaks if you don’t think this is serious…
Where is the SAUSD School Board as this scandal widens? Where is Roman Reyna? Where is John Palacio? What about Rob Richardson, Audrey Noji and Jose Hernandez? Are they all asleep at the wheel? It should be noted that only Hernandez has kids in the district. Reyna is single. Palacio is old. Richardson never had kids. And Noji sent her kid to a high school in Irvine.
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10-23-2012 we had a meeting and Mark Chavez told us that the ALLEDGEDLY our lettuce was thrown away due to Salmonella...lies..lies...lies..lies..we have the emails where we were directed to throw this away...
If this lettuce had samonella..where is the recall? You would have proof...we would have an email from the vendor....tell us another lie...
What a short memory our leader has...we dont trust you because after today YOU confirmed that your version of the truth is just altered.
Mark Chavez, you could have admitted YOU made a mistake..instead YOU lied!
Just to make it clear...we are not after the board, we are not after Mr. Bishop, we need a true leader in food services.....
menu committee? I think that was an idea from before and if memory serves us correctly...Mark Chavez turned it down..now its a good idea? What a joke....Mark Chavez it is our opinion that you are unstable to lead our department...
Mark Chavez had trouble explaining to us whether to serve juice or not..with a fruit? How can we run our kitchens if our director can't even tell us what we can serve?
We are confused and we need help. I am sorry Mark...these were just our opinions after our managers meeting...
I heard that Mark Chavez has his children enrolled in another district...not SAUSD...
Mark Chavez does not give us the help we need to do our jobs at the schools..WE ARE SHORT STAFF!!!...but Chavez gets consultants and now more manager people..more than ever!!!
Mark Chavez did not approve us working during registration and our food applications are not being turned in because parents dont know how to fill them out right....
We need help. Ok..allegedly..there someone please help.
FOR CYA..all of the following is aallegedly:::….So Mark Chavez( SAUSD Food Director) internal protectors or political favors are showing there true colors again,,,10-19-2012, on Edjoin (a website for district jobs) two Food Service jobs were posted for santa ana school district….Operation Manager and Nutrition Manager..WHY doesn’t the District or HR address the TRUE issue here which is Chavez lack of leadership and knowledge. Allegedly hundreds of thousand dollars(taxpayers) are spent on outside food service consultants to assist Mark Chavez.. WHY pay Mark Chavez over 100k salary if he needs consultant for almost every step..Mark Chavez has been the leader of the food service dept.. for OVER ONE year now..And its still in disarray and the lame excuse of ” I inherited this problem ” is very old NOW…
I believe or imagine that Chavez probably ran to the District Office/Bishop crying that he was overwhelmd..Only after his department was exposed w/the photos to the media regarding the 2 articles..BUT thats not the first time for major food waste on HIS WATCH ..Does the District or Bishop or The board members know what little time he actually spends at the his office or what really happens at the Central Kitchen…????? He’s not out visiting Sites…just ask the lunch supervisors at each site..? Who can account his forty hours a week??? It actually should be longer hours if he cares for his department..and being the new kid…mighty secure about his position???What do u think….
Well, we hear he went by 2 sites 2day..hahahaha......seriously?????!!! Mark Chavez do you know what proper documentation looks like? I dunno..I guess u bettr ask ur consultants!!! LOL!!!
Ou opinion is that Chavez is very insecure of his abilities and will not allow anyone with any true knowledge or background in school food service… Thats probably why he uses consultants which do not threaten him or question his leadership ..For a food service director theirs a Lack of knowledge for federal and state policies and procedures is just amazing and NOT in a good way!!!
…Allegedly there was a change in food vendors without a bidding process and of course Chavez came out clean and had Stella(Operation Mgr) take the fall and….Chavez must have approved the change or not inform her of the federal violation…Chavez’s PROTECTED AGAIN…..BUT YET AGAIN!!! SOMEONE ELSE GOT HURT!!!
QUESTION ????? TO HR / Board Memembers /MR. Bishop…..Why hand him the keys to the dept..and not post the director’s job..Was it posted? Did he interview? Was it promised to him since JAN( prior food service director) was terminated on her last day of probation …WHY NOT,.JUST HIRE A TRUE FOOD SERVICE DIRECTOR..?????Why allow so many consultant and have taxpayers pay…???????
Thelma Mendez..d discard log are not for major food waste..I think for major food waste theirs a policy/procedure to be followd and the state should b informd when discrading so much food. So dont believe everything ur told Thelma....
.Someone out there PLEASE help the department so the students get better service and taxpayesr money doesnt go to waste….ITS ELECTION time plz vote…Start with new board members…Members that will stand strong against corruption….
And, yes the xpired food magically disappeard willyazu.. anonymous & tim_villalobos VOTE NO ON 30 & 38!!! YES agreed!!!
WHY is the district looking for the whistle blower when their answer to the solution is MARK CHAVEZ…take care of problem and stop trying 2figure our who the whistleblowers are..they are people who care about our children in Santa Ana..and they are people who have witnessed the injustice of SAUSD...
This is our freedom of speech..as i said when I startd..2CYA myself..this is all aallegdly!!
Please check out the OC WEEKLY for allegations of wasted tax $$$$ on food being tossed and allegations of salmonella in our schools being fed to our children...
PLEASE READ!!!
We feel that Mark Chavez food service director cuts our hours, doesnot give us help to our students, wastes tons of food...then CHAVEZ pays all this $$ on more managers & consultants...this is NOT RIGHT! We thought we were supposed to be about our students?
well allegedly we ran our of fish and we did not have fish to serve to our kids...funny..the order came in on the 19th we packed it today..and management barely found out we were short...hmm...whats going on in food service Mark Chavez?
Is there not some kind of law when it comes to reimburseable meals being violated here? Are our students receiving a reimburseable meal?
Gustavo from OC Weekly, u need 2ask around...we have sooo many issues in Food 4Thought. 1 of our issues is we have drivers that get overtime & in our opinions do not need it...we have sum that just drive around and we have to work so hard while they r just out & about...
Plus, some of the other drivers do not get the same overtme...its really not fair..but our food service director Mark Chavez in our opinions is like afraid to do anything..and we continue to suffer this kind of stuff....
In our opinions all this stuff is very unfair....maybe you should come out and see what some of these drivers do...I wont say names...but every1 knows who they are...I dont think our tax payers would like all these thins that are going on...just our opinions....
Rumor has it that the food Police is in d House at SAUSD...4those of u that dont know.... thats d USDA dept...will they uncover d.. truth about our lettuce...d Carrots.... dBroccoli ?? Stay tuned.....