District schools served recalled beef

School spokeswoman Mafara Hobson confirmed Tuesday that the schools’ main food vendor bought beef from Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Company but she refused to discuss details of the arrangement. She said that the schools won’t be serving beef for the next two weeks while officials find a new source.

A school source who spoke on condition of anonymity told The Examiner that D.C. had served thousands of pounds of the recalled beef in its school cafeterias.

Chino, Calif.-based Hallmark/Westland had 143 million pounds of beef recalled earlier this week after the Humane Society filmed its packers prodding sick or injured cattle into the slaughterhouses. The practice violated U.S. Department of Agriculture rules that required “downer” cattle to be examined thoroughly before slaughter.

Federal officials have said that there is only a “remote” chance of anyone becoming sick from having eaten the recalled beef.

But the revelation that D.C. children were eating the recalled meat has been seized upon by critics of Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee. Critics warned that her plans to privatize most of the schools comes just as she is trying to win support to privatize most of the schools’ services, including its cafeterias.

Some parents, activists and officials seized upon the news that the meat was served to criticize Rhee.

“It’s one of these other jaw-dropping lapses in how we take care of our children,” said D.C. Council member Mary Cheh, D-Ward 3. “It should give us pause before we launch ourselves into a new system to make sure that we have some kind of control.”

Last year, the Center for Science in the Public Interest ranked D.C. the second-worst city in the nation for monitoring its school food supplies.

Got a tip on the D.C. schools? Call Bill Myers at 202-459-4956 or send him an e-mail at bmyers@dcexaminer.com.