Prince George's County students claim school lunches are undercooked, contain mold
FORT WASHINGTON, Md. - Students attending Prince George’s County Public Schools are complaining about some disgusting discoveries in the school cafeteria. Complaints about moldy and undercooked food were issued to the school district through Twitter directly from these students who say they have not heard a response from the school system.
But the outrage on social media was more than evident from these students who say someone will end up getting sick from these school lunches.
"Criminals are getting better food than we are,” said Tamera Perry, a senior student at Friendly High School in Fort Washington.
It’s not prison food, but these students allege their school lunches are not up to par.
“You're giving us something that's not healthy, that can possibly cause us to die and it's just unacceptable,” the high school student told us.
A school lunch menu for Friday, Sept. 11 at Friendly included “Rojo Fiesta Pizza." But Perry said, “What was in it was nowhere near salsa. That wasn't pizza at all. It was just disgusting."
Some students may not share the taste in ingredients or choices made by Prince George’s County Public Schools. But they said burger buns with mold and undercooked meat are nothing new to their lunch trays.
"I've gotten lunch where my mandarin orange has mold on it,” said Perry. “There have been incidents where the lunch lady had to collect our fruit cup because they were expired. Our milk has been expired. Open up apple juice cartons and it's been green. It's just disgusting."
One picture showed hollowed out chicken nuggets. For these students, their lunches come at a price too high for many.
"They raised our lunches to $3,” said Perry. “We're paying $3 for something that’s not edible, not organic and it's not healthy ... For some of the population of students, that's their only lunch, so you're putting them in a sticky situation where they can either continue to starve or they eat it because that's the only thing they have to eat."
FOX 5 reached out to Prince George’s County Public Schools on Monday. The school district was observing a holiday and there were no classes and their offices were closed.
But a school spokesperson wrote in a statement, "PGCPS cannot confirm the origin of the photo circulating on social media, but encourages anyone who has concerns regarding meals to call 301-952-6580. Providing healthy and nutritious meals for all students is a contributing factor to high academic achievement and the district prides itself on doing so for over 129,000 students each day.”