Colorado schools fail inspection mandate
Students eat lunch at a Denver elementary school on Aug. 23. Virtually every Denver school cafeteria was inspected at least once in 2009-10 but federal rules say it should have been twice.
Federal regulations require school lunchrooms be inspected at least twice a year by local health authorities but more than half of all Colorado schools fail to meet that mandate. Many aren’t inspected even once a year.
It’s a record that put Colorado in the bottom five of all states in 2008-09, the most recent year available, when an average 29.5 percent of schools nationwide fell short of the required number of inspections.
The reason so many schools lag: While the 2004 School Lunch Reauthorization Act requires schools to obtain
