New requirements for using school cafeteria

[Cranbury Press]

New requirements for using school cafeteria
Thursday, December 11, 2008 11:10 AM EST
By Maria Prato-Gaines, Staff Writer

CRANBURY — Organizations that frequently use the Cranbury School cafeteria may have noticed a new fixture on the premises — “bio security.”

School officials have recently implemented a state-mandate that requires outside organizations to pay for a food service employee to supervise the groups’ activities both inside and outside the facility.

”They are charged with maintaining the integrity of our food supply,” said Joyce Picariello, Cranbury School business administrator.”

Bio-security staff are responsible for things such as ensuring delivery trucks are locked while food is being transported inside the school, that no two food supplies come in contact with each other and that unauthorized personnel do not have access to the kitchen.

”This is an attempt to keep unauthorized personnel out of the kitchen,” she said. “After Sept. 11 there were some thoughts that our food supply was at risk. It was one of the ways it was thought a terrorist group could be harmful.”
Organizations that have used the cafeteria in the past include the Cranbury Lions Club, The Golden Agers and the Parent Teacher Organization, all of which must now pay the $20 an hour fee to hire a bio-security employee, which in Cranbury are staff members from Sodexo, a food service and facilities management company regularly contracted by the school.

Although the mandate has been in place for three years now, Ms. Picariello said school officials have been monitoring the situation during their planning phase.

They devised a plan for the additional security last spring and began implementing it in September, she said.

”It’s new to the point that the school district had a plan but it hadn’t been enforced,” she said. “Internally, the state provides us with a template and we follow the template.”

But not everyone is pleased with the recent changes as Cranbury Lions Club President Mike Kaiser said hiring bio-security tacked on hundreds of dollars of additional cost to its annual pancake breakfast, which took place Sunday.

In order to cover those costs, Mr. Kaiser said the club had to raise ticket prices to this year’s event.

”We’re not thrilled with the extra expense,” he said. “But we have to do what we have to do. (Bio-security) was familiar with the kitchen and the equipment but I don’t see the big difference in the safety of the school.”

Other organizations, such as the PTO, support the change.

”There are a few times a year we use the cafeteria,” said Cheryl Coyle, PTO co-president. “The safety of our children should be our number one concern. We live in a very different time and day.”

The PTO has not raised its prices for various events since the mandate went into effect, but rather has budgeted the extra costs into its expenses.

”The purpose is to make sure our children are safe,” Ms. Picariello said. “Bad things can happen anywhere and you have to be proactive.”

http://centraljersey.com/articles/2008/12/11/cranbury_press/news/doc494139a14d08e728155611.txt

[Guest]

Do we really need this? We keep adding jobs and pay backs in our state for things that are really not necessary. How many years have state schools been in operation without an incident? Is the lions club really a threat? Seriously, this is nothing more than another state job to keep the union happy.

[Guest]

Exactly correct.

Corzine claims to be a reformer but he's wasting time putting on a show of saving us not a dime by "consolidating schools that already run more efficiently than the parent districts they would be consolidated into but meanwhile allows the Unions to continue to treat the State like a fiefdom,