It's the Brian Laird Show on WNYC. I'm Bridget Bergen, senior reporter in the WNYC and Gotham Miss Newsroom

filling in for Brian today.

And now, we'll turn our attention to reporting coming from my colleague

Jacqueline Jeffrey Wulensky in the WNYC and Gothamist newsroom

on the cleanliness of our kids cafeterias.

Oh!

While school lunches have never been the pinnacle of fine dining, they should at least be safe and healthy options to fuel children throughout their school day.

Unfortunately, New York City schools are falling short of these minimum requirements.

According to data and health reporter,

Jacqueline Jeffrey Whelensky, one fifth of New York City public schools received critical

health violations in their cafeterias in the most recent health department inspection.

Among those, more than 230 schools were repeat offenders and had racked up critical violations over at least two inspections in the last two years.

What does this mean for the health and safety of our city's city kids at school?

Jacqueline Jeffrey Wulensky joins me now to answer this question and more.

Jacqueline, it's great to have you here on the Brian Laird Show in studio.

Thanks for having me.

Sorry, this is going to be gross.

Good listener warning there.

So let's just start out with the basics.

What exactly is a critical health violation?

What kinds of violations would be considered the most critical?

Yeah, that term critical violation is mostly reserved for like the really gross violations like pests, like flies, roaches, signs of mice, temperature control, which is a big source of food-borne illness, and the likelihood of cross-contamination.

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