How clean are your school cafeterias?

Twice we had been to the nation's capitol and on our second visit, school cafeterias had dramatically improved. But some violations just wouldn't go away. The two times, we visited Ballou High School with inspector Ronnie Taylor, we found mice droppings right below where food was served. At that time, a D.C. official promised that six months later we would be able to “eat off the floors.”

In spite of that appetizing invite, Dateline was crossed off the list this time around. The man in charge of Washington cafeterias wrote us saying we couldn't come back because our visit..."would be too disruptive and could add to the lowered morale of the...staff who work very hard to provide breakfast and lunch in a wholesome environment every day."

It seems like a missed opportunity for D.C. schools though, because in reviewing the most recent inspection report for Ballou High School, in fact, the school has improved. Inspectors found no mouse droppings under the food service line.

Detroit, the motor city wanted to toot its horn about how much better it was doing. Last fall, food at Rosa Parks Elementary wasn't hot enough and brand new ovens couldn't be plugged in to reheat food. Today, circuit breakers are installed and ovens are piping hot. In fact, during our recent visit, the school had no critical violations at all.

At another school last fall, employees had nowhere to wash their hands, a critical violation. Shortly after our visit, a new sink was installed. And while a number of schools had rodent problems before, this time there wasn't a creature stirring in all of the five schools we returned to. But have Detroit schools been able to correct serious temperature violations we found last fall? The answer unfortunately is no.

Which is what the inspector found this time around, macaroni and cheese not heated properly. One cafeteria manager even failed the test when asked what the proper temperature was for hot food.

In many Detroit schools Dateline visited recently, kitchen thermometers were not working properly. In one kitchen, normally a hot place to begin with, a handheld thermometer used to measure food temperatures was showing the air temperature about 50 degrees too low.

Berg: “If those thermometers were registering 20 degrees in a kitchen, if nobody picked up on it, that says that they're really probably not trained at all.”

At another kitchen, the milk cooler thermometer wasn't working. Not surprisingly, the milk in the cooler was not as cold as it was supposed to be. One school official argued that the problem must be with the inspector's thermometer, not the milk.

Robert Brown is the director of the Detroit school lunch program.

Hansen: “How can your people make sure that food is kept at the right temperature if they don't have working thermometers?”

Robert Brown: “We just have to be more diligent of making sure that the thermometers are working and some of that is training as well. I think if you check the logs with the Health Department and their normal visits, there have been fewer critical violations this year than at any time in recent history.”

In fact, a review of Detroit health inspection reports last fall showed that inspectors found at least one critical violation 61 percent of the time. Since then, the number has now dropped to 40 percent.

In Nashville, Tenn., Dateline had gone to the country music capitol schools twice before and the violations actually were worse the second time around. School officials were hoping the third time would be the charm. In September, we saw bits of broken glass mixed in with fruit in the cooler. This time, the cooler was fine.

At another high school last fall, there were bugs chewing on a bag of flour. Needless to say the school flunked its inspection. The school’s latest inspection report showed not a bug in sight. Last September, we found hamburgers and pizza severely undercooked, 70 to 80 degrees below the correct temperatures.

In our most recent visit, Nashville still had some food temperatures violations, but nowhere near as extreme as before. The last time we visited Nashville mice were a problem, especially at McGavock High where the inspector found dead mice rotting in a trap. Unfortunately for kids at that school, in the same area, there are still signs of mice.

We showed our video to Jay Nelson, the head of food services in Nashville.

Hansen: “How concerned are you about what we just saw there?”

Jay Nelson: “I'm concerned about that, Chris. But we're not seeing, as in previous visits, mice droppings out in the serving lines. No excuse. We're at least getting it to the back of the house now.  Pretty soon we'll take care of the entire problem.”

Critical violations for Nashville schools have decreased since our visit last fall, especially after the health department started targeting problem schools. Back then, inspectors found critical violations 71 percent of the time. Since our fall visit that number has been cut to just 40 percent. Problem schools are now being inspected four instead of two times a year. Nelson says the change in the inspection schedule came about after Dateline's visits to Nashville schools.

Hansen: “You know, a lot of school districts this time around refused to let us go along on inspections. Yet you did even after, you know, we saw some fairly significant problems. Why did you let us come back a third time?”

Nelson: “I certainly don't want to be on national television and showing critical violations. But we have certainly improved and we certainly have cut our critical violations, which I think has been part of you being there.”

While Dateline's visits may have triggered changes in some schools, we wanted to get a more complete picture of how schools are doing when our cameras re not rolling.

So we examined thousands of inspection reports from the last two years.

Our latest review showed some school districts close to the goal of perfect inspections, but others still have a long way to go.

Dateline's visits to school cafeterias with health inspectors are just a snapshot on one given day in which a lot can go right or wrong. Of the 29 schools Dateline went to this time around, 26 had critical violations, the kind that can lead to food borne illness in children. To get a fuller picture, we asked 10 cities around the country, some we had visited and some we had not, to send us health reports for unannounced school inspections for the past two years.

These are the findings based on the reports they sent us, some reports show more than one critical violation.

In one school, our cameras found roaches and a dead mouse. But after reviewing two years of documents, we discovered that only three percent of school inspection reports showed critical violations -- a remarkably low number.

Hansen: “Over the last two years out of 669 inspections, there were only 33 critical violations.”

Bell: “We're very proud of the fact that our people are well trained so that they know how food has to be served.”

It was a different story in Fairfax County, Va., where we found few critical violations during our visit. Records show that in 59 percent of its inspections, Fairfax schools have at least one critical violation, most often for keeping food at the wrong temperature.

Hansen: “Does it surprise you that when we went back and looked in special reports for two years that the most common violation was temperature violations?”

McConnell: “It disappointed me.  Did it surprise me?  No, because that's been a very, very, very difficult training issue.”

Kansas City, Mo., was the school district with the most critical violations during our recent visits. Was it just unlucky that day? Or was what we saw part of a larger pattern?

Birch: “I would have liked to think that what we have seen today is not a reflection on most of our cafeterias in our schools.”

But it turns out that Kansas City school cafeterias didn't fare much better when we looked at their performance over time. Seventy percent of the time, inspectors find at least one critical violation during unannounced visits. In fact, many schools have two or three. We also examined two years of inspection reports from four cities that declined to allow Dateline cameras into their schools.

Birmingham, Ala.: 35 percent of the reports show critical violations.
New Orleans: At least one critical violation in 42 percent of the reports.
Minneapolis: “Health inspectors found at least one critical violation 48 percent of the time.
Washington, D.C.: In the fall, inspection reports showed a critical violation 88 percent of the time, the highest of any school district we'd seen.

Their record has improved, but still has a long way to go. Reports show critical violations dropped to 74 percent since the new year.

As we've done before, we shared the results of our investigation with Illinois Senator Dick Durbin. As a result of Durbin's efforts, federal law now requires schools to have at least two inspections a year and  they must also have a plan in place to decrease lunch room violations.

Sen. Dick Durbin: “Give credit to Dateline. You got the ball rolling. You brought it to my attention and I think created some momentum for us to make some legislative changes that can help too... We have to demand that every kid, every vulnerable, innocent kid who goes to school, has a safe school lunch.”

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