NEW YORK – Many New York City public school cafeterias are crawling with mice, fruit flies, roaches and other vermin – one of several “critical” health issues plaguing the city’s school cafeterias cited in a new legislative report.

“This report shows that many of the cafeterias in our city schools have racked up numerous health code violations, and that parents have no way of knowing about these violations,” said state Sen. Jeff Klein, who authorized the report with several other lawmakers.

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“If parents can make decisions about the restaurants they frequent based on a letter grade, they should have the same knowledge about where their children eat every day.”

The report – “School Lunch Flunks: An Investigation into the Dirtiest New York City Public School Cafeterias” – pointed to a total of 8,114 violations at 1,377 cafeterias inspected last school year, which included hundreds of “critical” violations like mice, roaches, flies and other pests, or unsanitary conditions that risk student health.

“City Health Department records show that 395 inspections out of 2,976 in fiscal year 2015-2016 resulted in a sanitation grade of B or worse,” the New York Daily News reports.

At least 320 schools received 442 violations for evidence of mice in the cafeteria, while 136 schools were cited for 155 fly-related violations. There were rats at four schools, according to the report.

“In once instance at the Sixth Avenue Elementary School inspectors found 400 mouse droppings,” Klein told CBS New York.

NBC New York reports:

The schools with the highest number of violations were P.S./I.S. 192 in
Brooklyn with 15 violations, as well as Franklin D. Roosevelt High School in Brooklyn and In-Tech Academy M.S./H.S. 368 in the Bronx with 14 violations each. Vermin found at the three schools range from filth and fruit flies to mice. …

P.S./M.S. 147 received a 48 inspection score, the worst on the list. The school incurred eight violations during an April 2016 inspection, which uncovered drain flies and mice at the Queens school.

Roaches are crawling through the cafeterias of I.S. 211 in Brooklyn, PS. 16 on Staten Island, P.S. 214 in Queens and P.S. 33 in Chelsea. 

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“This is very disturbing and kind of scary. Roaches can stick to you and even travel with you,” parent Stephanie Calvaire told the Daily News as she picked up her 5-year-old daughter from PS 147.

The city Health Department attempted to put a positive spin on the filth uncovered by the inspections.

“School cafeterias perform very well on health inspections, with 86 percent earning the equivalent of an ‘A’ grade on initial inspection compared to 59 percent of restaurants,” a spokesperson said.

Klein said the report is intended to bolster legislation to grade school cafeterias and inform parents about school health conditions.

“I think if we hold restaurants accountable on their sanitary conditions by having a very easy to read letter grade – an A, B, or C – I think the same standard should hold true for our public school cafeterias,” Klein told CBS New York.

“We expect our kids to get As, we should also expect the cafeterias that feed them work just as hard to make the grade.”

The city’s Department of Education issued a statement about increasing transparency on school cafeteria conditions.

“We are dedicated to providing students with nutritious meals in cafeterias that are clean and safe, and will work with the Department of Health to make the reports more easily accessible to the public,” the statement read.

The legislative report was crafted from information collected through the state’s public records law.