Two school cafeteria employees have been disciplined for serving sandwiches that were taken out of the trash.

The two cafeteria workers, at Lakeview Middle School, were demoted and suspended from work for two weeks without pay for serving wrapped sandwiches that had been thrown away, said Chris Little, chief food inspector for the Kosciusko County Health Department.

Approximately five sandwiches were given to students, Little said. "The sandwiches were individually wrapped and the trash bag didn't have other items in it," he said.

Dave McGuire, Lakeview principal, said the incident happened in October and Marci Franks, food service director for Warsaw Community Schools, was notified immediately. Franks called the health department and told them what steps she was taking to deal with the situation.

"It was dealt with promptly and I think appropriately," McGuire said. "The health department said there was no contamination."

Little said he did not make a personal inspection because "there wasn't anything to look at by then."

As far as the parents of the students who received the sandwiches being told about the situation, Little said that was up to the school. McGuire said the parents weren't notified because he was told the health department said it wasn't necessary.

The health department does unannounced inspections of school cafeterias twice a year, Little said, and the results of those inspections are available to the public.

"They overall do a very good job on cleanliness," he said. "This was just a terrible error in judgment. It was a dumb thing to do." [[In-content Ad]]