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.
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…..
Allegedly we had another meetin & Mark Chavez did not answer OUR question when asked WAS THE LETTUCE BAD? Why tell secondaries…d lettuce had salmonella..BUT not answer US..ELEMENTARIES? Cuz we may have servd it 2our kids? Again these r allegations..BUT If USDA is really here….can u answer our questions?
Sum1 please cut d oranges 4 our studnts..not right..kids have barely time 2 eat..no time cut oranges…why b lazy? Just our opinion…
++RUMOR HAS IT-Our boss Mark Chavez is hiring another field supervisor..wow! adding all these top layer managers and at our schools nothin!!! We dont even have enough help to feed our students!!!..the question we have is will this position be awarded to the new office specialist who was just a sub and allegedly was or had the office speacilist position created for him this summer/ school year whatevr?
In my opinion, it is not fair to give somone a position just becuz the boss thinks he should have it…what a screwed up department we have…USDA do your job
ALLEGEDLY-Mark Chavez is still at the helm at SAUSD..despite the fact that he only has like 4 years expirience in school food service..none of which consist of being a leader in a large district…
Mark Chavez went to Hamburger College and worked for Mc Donalds and now over sees a 33 Million dollar budget….he cust our staffing and what used to take 4 managers to lead at the helm..now he has 8 and we still cant get it right!
Political favors? In our opinion, SAUSD obviouly does not care what it voters or families of students think..we hope the new Asst. Director will be the new Director….just like what SAUSD did to Jan when little Napoleon came along….
So what are we waiting for?..what is going to happen now? Are we going to get a better leader at SAUSD food service or is the SAUSD board and Thelma hoping we just go away and continue to tolerate our (A.K.A. Mark Chavez)Napeleon Dictator to run our food services dept. to the ground?
Inquiring food service workers WANT 2 KNOW!!!!
We have a right to our opinions and a right to know what is going to be done…our leader lied to us and YET he is still here…..Our opinion, POLITICAL favors…prove us wrong….PLEASE.
FOR CYA..all of the following is allegedly: Mark Chavez(SAUSD Food Director) internal protectors or political favors are showing there true colors again,on Edjoin (a website for district jobs) posted MORE FOOD SERVICE MANAGEMENT JOBS…
Geez..I wonder if this job is 4 Mark’s little behind the scenes little worker that even writes ups his business plans…????
Allegedly, Mark Chavez created a job as a Dept. Specialist that was already promised to a person named Viet who does all of Mark’s business plans, orgnizational charts, etc….ALLEGEDLY!!!!
Unfortunately, Mark Chavez is allowed to promise jobs to people based on his..I am sure tremendous expirience…must be that Hamburger College everyone keeps referring too…oh wait, have to say allegedly…
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…
We are hoping that the NEW ASST> DIRECTOR that clearly has MORE knowledge & EXPIRIENCE than MR. MARK CHAVEZ will soon take the role of food service director..much like when Mark Chavez came and it was all part of a plan when they removed Jan…just our opinion..and as much as we did not like her style…she was WAY BETTER than Mark Chavez..and 4sure had more expirience…
SAUSD might of fooled the state…it’s being kept under a very tight lid..but U cant fool us!!!
Address the issue..new food service director.
Allegations and Inquiries—-SAUSD/Bishop or The board members…do you know what little time Mark Chaves actually spends at the his office or what really happens at the Central Kitchen…?????
Mark Chavez is not out visiting Sites…just ask the lunch supervisors at each site..? Who can account his forty hours a week???
During OUR STATE VISIT..MARK CHAVEZ did not even come by and review our sites…We are assuming cuz he doesnt even know what to look for….he left us at our sites to do all the dirty work while he just relaxed…NOT RIGHT!!!!
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!!!
How did we change from US FOODS to GOLD STAR without a proper bidding process? Hello USDA??? Tax payers $$$
QUESTION ????? TO HR / Board Memembers /MR. Bishop…..Did Mark Chavez interview for the Food Service Director JOB? 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….
I never thought I would say this..but SAUSD could actually benefit from a consulting company..but, we will give the new Asst. Director a chance…give him the Food Service Director Job…
.Someone out there PLEASE help the department so the students get better service and taxpayesr money doesnt go to waste.
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 we startd..2CYA..this is all allegdly!!
Jamie Oliver U need 2really come 2 SAUSD…U would see what a lame excuse of a food service director we have and all the mistakes Mark Chavez makes and how the district pays consultants to do his job!!!! All this with our tax payers money…
We are so despearete here..the State came back and SAUSD is keeping a tight lid on the results..YET Mark Chavez, former hamburger Mc Donald’s graduate is still our director…..inquiring minds want to know how a person with approximately 4 years of school food service expirience has a job running a district of 33 million dollar budget?
These are all our opinions…..and ALLEGATIONS…just to be clear….but it seems like someone is doing this Napoleon rookie a political favor….funny…Mark Chavez’s father works (so we are told) at LA Unified..did Mr. Bishop come from LA Unified?
We also know that Mark Chavez used to work with Thelma/Superintendent at another district, by the way SAUSD is the only district where Mr. Chavez has been a Food Service Director..prior to that he was an Operations Manager at a smaller district, then an Asst. Diretor, at another smaller district….totalling approximately 4 years….while working at Costco in the meat department…
So, we are compelled to ask…how did Mark Chavez land a Food Service Director job at a district our size??? Political favors?….we are not accusing..just asking….WONDERING!!!
SAUSD, we have a great Asst. Director now….he should be our leader…just our opinions
FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND VOICES TO BE HEARD-OUR FEELINGS AND THOUGHT….OPINIONS…Mark Chavez you can try and be nice now…but we have seen how you have treated other managers…also the new field supervisor job…has that been promised to someone already?
The perception is that this position has already been promised to someone of your choice….
Allegedly the position of the office spcialist was promised to the employee who was a long term sub….is he going to be our new field supervisor?
This is not right….we have other people who have been here longer and have more expirience…why is this happening?
Mark Chavez..u did not even pay 4our meals at the recent food service show…BUT u sure did pay 4ur top dog managers…again tax payers $ but U treat the hard working managers like dirt!! Not cool!! We are the face of ur food service department..SHAME ON U!!
Our opinions r being voices..but since our opinions dont matter…I guess its ok if we make them known!
Rumor has it Mr. Bishop may be leaving??? But, Mark Chavez still remains as the Food Service Director? What is going on??? Please help SAUSD food services!!!!
Rumor has it that after this last STATE CRE/SMI Reaudit…(when the State just came back)that there was some MULA $$$$ in the sum of MILLIONS of dollars… that had 2b paid back….is this true? Inquiring food service workers would like to know…..heha!
Also, rumor has it that Mr. Bishop is leaving? Before his contract ends? AMAZING!!!
Someone please shed some light on the truth??? BUT, Mark Chavez is still over seeing our food service department????
These are all allegations..but we would like to know the truth….