“Consider the Source” Email Circulates, Parent Who Warned of Cafeteria Problems Was Ridiculed by New Ro Superintendent

In the weeks prior to the 2009 school board/budget elections a Ward School parent circulated an email warning of the rapid deterioration of the hot lunch program at Ward and asking if other parents in the district had noticed similar problems at other schools.

When asked about this email by parents from another school during a public appearance to campaign for passage of the school budget, Schools Superintendent Richard Organisciak dismissed the concerns raised in the email and personally derided the concerned parent, telling other parents, school administrators and school board members to “consider the source” in what is one of Organisciak’s favorite rhetorical tactics known as “poisoning the well”. In other words, “who are going to believe, me or her? And remember, I make a quarter-million dollars a year and have a fancy title. She is just some kooky parent with a grudge”.

A Talk of the Sound reader has submitted what appears to be the email that circulated in March 2009 to which Organisciak referred:

Subject: RE: School lunch
Sent: Thursday, March 05, 2009 5:44:54 PM EST

Hello Everybody – I hope you are all doing well. I have been busy getting ready for No Junk Food Week. In the midst of it, our hot lunch experience at Ward school is deteriorating at a rapid rate. I wanted to know if any of your schools were having problems.

Most recently (i.e. – this week and last week) there is simply not enough food to serve the children in the school. The 4th graders (the last served) are down to two pancakes (minus the “dried” egg – whatever that is — and minus sausage. When that ran out, they were given white bread and american cheese (that’s it). Today children received 3 chicken nuggets (as opposed to six).

For months now the kids are getting left-overs. For example, they have hamburgers “fresh” on Wed. and will get them reheated on Thursday. They have also been served Friday’s pizza the following Monday. I am told that the hot dogs bounce, although I have never witnessed it :). I am sure that this is just the tip of the iceberg. My children do not get any hot lunch this year. I cut out their Friday pizza when Ward school’s milk was found to be well beyond it’s expiration date last year.

I have long been concerned about the quality and variety of the food served by Aramak from a nutritional and taste perspective. However, I am now concerned from a safety perspective. Serving old, reheated and potentially spoiled food is plain unsafe. Not having enough food to satisfy the caloric and nutritional needs of students is beyond reprehensible. For many children in Ward (and the district) hot lunch is their only chance at a “meal” all day. Thus, it is their only opportunity to receive the nutrients they need to fuel their mind and body.

It is an outrage and an embarrassment that Aramak is failing to provide even the “basics” to our children. It is my understanding that there have been problems at Ward school for some time with this food service. I spoke to Dr. Weiss this afternoon and she advised me that she has not received complaints from other schools in the district.

I am wondering if the reason for that is that there are no problems in other schools or that it hasn’t been escalated to Dr. Weiss. If you do have problems/complaints in your school, now is the time to speak up about it. I feel that our children are entitled to a better food service provider and I know that they are out there.

Please share your thoughts with me on this issue. As you know, there is strength in numbers and I feel it might be time for a change.

Please pass this e-mail on to anyone you think I may have missed. (I am working off my e-mail contacts from last year). Thanks so much.

We have said many times before but we will never stop saying it so long as Organisciak continues to do — he is a bald-faced liar. The parent writing this email was spot-on and Organisciak damn well knew it.

In light of the recent news that New Rochelle School cafeterias are ranked the worst in Westchester and Putnam counties, it should be quite clear that this parent was absolutely correct in her assessment of the cafeteria situation in the New Rochelle schools. Organisciak’s “consider the source” attack on the integrity of this parent is de rigeur for school officials who routinely use the power of their office to attack and criticize parents who dare ask questions or speak the truth about problems in the New Rochelle school system. Going forward, it can only be hoped that parents in New Rochelle will correctly apply Organisciak’s form of attack to him so next time he makes an unsubstantiated assertion or tries to dismiss concerns within the community, people will know to say “consider the source” about him and dismiss his lies and misrepresentations out of hand. For those new to Talk of the Sound we have documented many, many instances of lies and misrepresentations by Organisciak in public statements, remarks to the school board and to the press.

Readers would also do well to apply this same “consider the source” assessment to words uttered by Assistant Superintend John Quinn who routinely serves as Organisciak’s hatchet man. In attempting to excuse the inexcusable cafeteria inspection reports in 2008, Quinn told the Journal News that the District found the inspections “helpful” and sought to convey that the District responded to the “unacceptable” inspection reports by fixing the problems.

The Journal News article where Quinn is quoted puts the lie to those claims; according to the records obtained by the Journal News, the school district did not fix problems based on inspection reports — the Westchester County Health Department wrote THREE inspection reports about the ant infestation that plagued Jefferson School for months.

Further, the District failed inspections in 2006 and then failed more inspections in 2007 — four in two years. Most districts in Westchester and Putnam have ZERO failed inspections but New Rochelle is apparently satisfied to “only” get two per year. If the District were genuinely concerned about the rats, roaches, flied and ants crawling around our kid’s food, the bacteria festering in the undercooked ground beef, the warm tuna or the inadequately reheated hamburgers and hot dogs, just a single “unacceptable” rating should have been sufficient to prompt swift and decisive action. Instead, the problem — like the bacteria — was allowed to fester so that by 2008 the district was cited TEN TIMES, more than any other district in Westchester and Putnam.

If Mr. Quinn really finds these inspection reports so helpful why was there a 500% increase in “unacceptable” health inspections after two consecutive years of being flagged for multiple “unacceptable” health inspections. This massive increase in health problems in the cafeteria occurred after he was hired and put in charge of the cafeterias so perhaps some acknowledgement of his own culpability for these problems is in order. Instead, Quinn likes to regale the board with tales of how he regularly goes to the schools to eat in the school cafeterias. You can bet he is not eating the warmed over tuna, the undercooked ground beef, re-heated rubbery hamburgers and hotdogs or bug-infested salads (students at Ward reported finding ladybugs in their salads last year; one student reported finding half a ladybug).

According to Quinn the problems in 2008 were remedied. If that is the case why is this parent email reporting exactly the same sorts of problems occurring in 2009 that were cited in previous reports from the Westchester County Health Department? Not only does this email indicate the problems have persisted into this year, but the school district has been actively engaged in attacking the integrity of parents who complain all while knowing the District was getting one failed inspection after another for the previous three years. Perhaps if Mr. Quinn or Mr. Organisciak or Dr. Weiss had their own children eating at these cafeterias they might not be so blase about what is clearly a very serious indictment of the school system that goes to the heart of their most fundamental responsibility as school administrators: to protect our children while they are in their care.

And given this track record of FOURTEEN failed health inspections in a three year period (remember most districts had ZERO), why would any school official seek to discredit a parent making complaints about food handling and preparation problems identical to some of those cited by the Health Department? The concerns of that parent and other parents should be treated with the utmost seriousness at all times but especially in light of the District’s track record. This parent should be honored for blowing the whistle to warn other parents; instead she is attacked by school officials.

Finally, where is the school board in all of this?

Sources tell Talk of the Sound that NONE of the failed health inspection reports was presented to the school board by the administration. I have been attending almost every school board meeting since June 2008 and never heard a single mention of these health problems in the cafeteria. Some were aware of the ant problem at Jefferson but it was never an agenda item or up for discussion that I can recall. Several board members were present when Organisciak ridiculed the complaints of the Ward parent last spring. All of the current board members were present when Organisciak informed the board a few weeks ago that the New York State health inspectors had flagged the District for State health inspections without once mentioning why the District had been flagged. As Mr. Hastie, Ms. Watkins, and Ms. Petrone all currently have children enrolled in the New Rochelle schools and therefore may well have been served the infested, infected slop being dished up by our cafeterias, you would think they might be prepared to revisit just how Organisciak disclosed the presence of State inspectors in our schools and how he treated their appearance in such a cavalier manner, focusing exclusively on how complimentary the state inspectors were about how welcoming he, and Dr. Weiss and others were when the state inspectors conducted their investigation.

And by the way, where are the results of that 2009 state investigation? Or is that something else the District does not feel parents with children being served infected food deserve to know about?