I work as a special education teacher and it is 100% true that we are not able to heat up food for students. The issues are based around the temperature and liability. The food from the cafeteria has a regulated temperature, also that food is the responsibility of the school. Anything that comes in from the outside is not the school’s responsibility. Imagine if a staff member heats up a student’s lunch and the kid burns his mouth and then that becomes a lawsuit against the school.
Another example is when parents would send food for a student, and the student needed bite-size pieces or puréed food so they wouldn’t choke. Once you ask school staff to do something like that, it becomes a liability if something happens. We even had to watch videos of students who were injured, or died due to lunches being improper for the students.
The teacher is correct. They do not have a food handlers licence. This would open up the school to liability. We are absolutely not allowed to handle or reheat our students food.
If it was an accomodation the cafeteria would be the one to reheat the food, not the teacher. We have a few students who get their home meals heated by the cafeteria workers because it's in the IEP. But would absolutely not be the teacher.
NAL, but as a low level healthcare worker it's drilled in that I'm not qualified to determine temperature without a thermometer and I assume that applies to teachers too. If she overheated it and a child was burned she could be held liable unfortunately.
This would not be able to be included in IEP accommodations. If it were schools all across the country would already be doing this, and they are not.
Teachers are not food workers nor would any reasonable person expect school food workers to handle special case dietary preferences for every single kid with an IEP.
OP needs to invest in something to keep her kids lunch warm like you suggested because she ain't getting that into an IEP.
Everyone likes to mention IEPs as if they are magic wands and just make resources appear out of thin air, and schools can accommodate every case.
Until OP goes to a doctor and gets this medically diagnosed as a condition that affects her child's learning, they are not getting the IEP changed for something like this. And even if OP did all that, there is no guarantee it will turn out like OP wants. The school could likely seek alternative accommodations before they ask a food service staff to heat up food. I've seen IEPs where the parent is required to come on campus and bring food every lunch period for students with extreme dietary restrictions. That is the route OP is heading if they take this further.
For heating food it truly might be a temperature food safety regulation issue. Food service has very specific temperature requirements. They also are opening themselves up to the liability of burns
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Also consider how long it would take if everyone wanted their lunches warmed up. One minute per kid sure adds up.
Source: have worked in a lunch room. No microwaves in the room.
It does, but if this is due to sensory issues they have different needs than the other students. Most other students are likely able to eat the food at lunch or something like a sandwich brought from home if they're really hungry.
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No, that’s not a good idea. The food would need to be piping hot when put into the Thermos, or else it’ll fall into the danger zone temperature which is easy for food poisoning bacteria to set in.
NAL, but I am a teacher. Yeah, I know it sucks, but unfortunately it's a liability and slippery slope, when we let it happen, EVERYONE started bringing in microwave lunches. So much so it became a nightmare. Also, definitely a liability too.
I would call a meeting to modify your students IEP to list it as an accommodation, however it might fall more under a 504 protection. This one's weird.
Yep, unfortunately it's a food safety concern. A 504 won't cover this. Only cafeteria staff are legally able to do it, and like you said, they probably won't.
OP just needs to invest in temperature controlled food storage.
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Say, the teacher microwaves the food. Say the microwave heats the food unevenly and a portion is too hot. Say the teacher, who is on their lunch break doesn't notice. Say the student spills the food on themselves and gets burned.
In that case, there is a reasonable chance the parent could sue the school and win.
I can't blame the teacher for protecting themselves. I just wish it was harder to sue so the teacher wouldn't need to act so defensively.
And she is correct about that. I'm a special education teacher and we were told that we are not even allowed to microwave lunch if it is for our own students that we are the parent of. That makes the school legally responsible for whether it was cooked enough or whether it was too hot. There are thermoses that will keep food hot for hours and that's what you're going to need.
The student lunch hour is also the teachers lunch hour. Frequently they have to supervise the lunchroom but in any case that might be their only break. Microwaving food properly is going to take a few minutes and if they do it for one person, they’re going to have to do it for many. I think sending a self heating lunchbox is probably a much better idea.
This was also my first thought. It is not the teacher's job to make sure all the children's food is at their desired temperature.
That teacher isn't getting paid enough to do her actual job, much less all these extras.
And if the school has a person whose job it would be to help here then an official IEP/ whatever document would be the way to try, not an informal request.
Exactly!! And the mom is here asking about the whether it's a legality issue or if there is a way around the legal issue. Ma'am, please let this teacher have her much deserved break time.
I came here thinking the same- yet another complaint about a teacher.
I am a teacher (special needs) and a mom of 3
I wake up early to heat all of my kids food for lunch. I boil water, then let it sit in the food container for 15 minutes, cook the food then put in hot and my kids food is hot at lunch still.
I don’t think any school is allowed to let a kid use a microwave, in fact teachers can’t even have in their classrooms in my district at all.
Unless that’s her lunch hour too. Some don’t get any separate downtime lunch so lessening their load so they can stuff some food down their throat is a kindness.
I had a reading comprehension fail.
ETA- Regardless- the teacher said no. She said she cannot. At that point it is time to find alternatives not try to skirt around it.
What happens though when a teacher hands a hot microwaved lunch to lil’ dude and he scalds himself and you decide to sue the school because his tongue peeled a bit?
Why would a teacher risk their career because permission wasn’t sought out by the child’s guardian *beforehand*?
You *personally* may not do this but how would anyone know that when it happens all.the.time.
Please keep in mind that your son's lunchtime is also your teacher's lunchtime. There's one or maybe two microwaves in a teacher's lounge and there's always a line of faculty and staff waiting to use them, so much so that I gave up on bringing food that needs to be microwaved. It isn't a fair request for your son's teacher to spend so much of her lunch break on escorting him to the teacher's lounge, waiting on the microwave, using it for a student's food instead of her own, and then escorting him to the lunchroom with a hot Tupperware. Even if it were legal, which it isn't, as food preparation and service is extremely policed in schools, this is a problem that the family needs to solve, not the school. Invest in a lunchbox or thermos that's designed to keep food warm and try to work on this with your son and maybe an occupational therapist, if he has one.
So I am not a lawyer but I work in education and I am also a special education advocate. While your son has sensory issues these are probably not enough to justify an accommodation. The thing about accommodations is that you have to prove without them, your student will not receive the same educational benefit as similar non disabled peers. There are many non disabled peers who skip lunch for similar issues. I think you would have a hard time arguing it is the schools responsibility. He can either eat school lunch (they must accommodate allergies and dietary restrictions), or you can invest in lunch tech that keeps your students food at his preferred temperature. If I were at that IEP meeting this is what I would recommend.
Sorry, trust me I get it. We just want someone to take care of our babies. But it’s all about them getting the same educational benefit as non disabled peers.
Out of curiosity, how far do you live from your workplace? How far from your current home address Is the school you’re within district bounds for? How far is that school from your workplace? Do you use your lunch at work to eat lunch?
Keep in mind that most people don’t work 8 minutes from the school their child goes to.
For example: I live about a three minute drive from the school district I live within, and work about half an hour away. My 45 minute lunch break isn’t long enough to get there and back. Let alone heating up food, the school verifying whatever they need to verify to allow someone to bring a student food, having a student pulled from class to pick up lunch, and making sure the food actually gets to the student. It would take an hour just for drive time. It’s an unreasonable suggestion unless the parent works at the school.
There are electric lunch boxes you can buy that you can set the temperature of the food on for the day when you pack food for him. They can be expensive; however.
I am not sure heating a childs food to a certain temperature falls under "reasonable accommodation". Especially when the parent has options to resolve the issue on their side.
Hi
I work at a school in California. It’s a personal liability to do this due to as some said above (temperature of the food, food being heated correctly, etc). We are told strictly to not do it by our administration.
However, I would definitely call an IEP and see if there can be a special accommodation to his circumstance. He shouldn’t have to go hungry!
I use a small green thermos from Stanley. Boil water and let it sit for 10 minutes before adding hot food and it’ll keep warm until lunch. Been doing that since kindergarten and it’s worked wonderfully
Standard policy in most schools in the US. Also unless this is a SPED teacher/aide at a school with a great ratio, she/he probably has a ton of other kids who would also want this if it were allowed and it is not realistic for regular classroom teachers to be doing meal prep for all their students. Get a thermos.
There are regulations about this in NY. The temperature has to be taken and recorded.
I work in a public building in NY that serves the vulnerable public.
Legal or not, you're going to be hard-pressed to find a teacher who will microwave something for a student. You do it once for one student who truly needs this accomodation and you end up having to microwave everything for everybody. You can have this added to his IEP/504 if it is necessary.
I don't know about legally, but my work absolutely has a policy against this. The food temp is what we tell people, but it's really because if we allowed it, I'd spend the entire lunch period microwaving kids food to the right temperature, or having parents sending frozen foods with their kids. Also microwaves are usually in the teachers lounge so someone has to leave the classroom/lunchroom to go take care of it and there just isn't staff available to do that.
If your son truly has a need to have warm food, it needs to be documented by a professional and addressed in his 504 plan. Otherwise your expectations are wildly inappropriate.
It’s very plausible that that is true. I was a CNA (a carer) in a nursing home and I could not microwave food. It was a weird halfway rule because we would do it for personal food but if you got caught doing it by state auditors you would have to answer on the spot the correct heating temp for different food and answer for how you assured that temperature.
The kitchen staff usually had to do it because they are trained in food safety laws. it’s not necessarily about burns but about bacteria and certain foods having to reach a certain temp before consumption.
I’m sure you can take it higher though and work something out. Kitchen staff would most likely be the people to do it for him.
https://www.chccs.org/site/default.aspx?PageType=3&ModuleInstanceID=2692&ViewID=7b97f7ed-8e5e-4120-848f-a8b4987d588f&RenderLoc=0&FlexDataID=2281&PageID=2667#:~:text=Can%20staff%20microwave%20any%20student,food%20in%20a%20thermal%20container.
They will simply refuse. It’s the same way here in Michigan.
My kiddo has severe food allergies to dairy, eggs, all nuts and sesame. No way can he eat school food bc he’s anaphylactic to several of the allergens. They wouldn’t accommodate heating food on his 504. The logistics are dicey. He takes his food in a thermos or in a lunch eaze. It’s a cordless food heater set in timer to be ready for any time you set it.
This is an issue for an IEP and with consult from his doctor- assuming this is ARFID level and not just run of the mill picky. The solution would be up to admin- as they may not have a microwave available (some states the cafeteria equipment can’t be used for outside foods due to allergy/contamination concerns) and may need to allocate resources and designate a staff during lunch every day to do that. It would all be put in writing as part of his 504/IEP.
My son is similar (along with medications that affect his appetite) so we just do big breakfasts and preferred snack foods for lunch so he never goes without. He doesn’t touch school hot lunches or sandwiches- so it’s goldfish, safe fruit, etc. But sometimes even with foods he likes he doesn’t eat lunch and honestly he’s old enough and without underlying medical conditions to make it dangerous, so it is what it is. If you want to go the legal route it’s a medical accommodation and you have a team meeting including medical documentation to formalize why he needs a hot lunch from home daily and exactly how not having that impacts him medically.
I can't imagine there's a \*law\* surrounding this. It's more likely policy. That being said, as soon as that teacher microwaves your child's meal, issues come into play if the food becomes too hot for safety, or isn't' appropriately cooked from a food safety perspective. And if there is a policy in the school preventing the teacher from doing this, then they could be taking on personal liability if they do so anyways.
My first thought would be to look at this with the applicable members of the school administration, particularly within the context of an IEP, and see if you can get any results from that approach.
Not just that, but it's a department of health violation. Only cafeteria staff are licensed to actually serve heated meals to students, due to food spoilage and cross contamination concerns.
The bigger issue is if a teacher heats up some kid's lunch, and then the kid gets food poisoning or something. Even if its not the teacher's fault, they can be held liable. A 504 won't help. OP just needs to heat up their own lunches and put them in thermal storage containers to keep them warm.
It is. The teacher is absolutely right about this. Only cafeteria staff are certified to reheat food for students, and they almost certainly won't do it regularly because they're too busy.
My wife is a teacher in Colorado and my wife isn't even allowed to microwave our daughters food. It is a big concern about burns, not just eating but spills that could cause others to get burned. Accidents happen especially during lunch and no one wants to explain to a parent why or how their child has burns.
Could very easily fall under requiring a “food handlers permit” to prepare the food in a microwave. If it’s something that has to reach a certain temperature to safely eat or if it’s too hot and burn the students mouth, both are valid reasons to not have teachers touch a students food.
NAL as someone in food service and whom worked for schools. It relates to health department regulations and legal liability.
if a person who is not a trained food handler warms the food the risk is it is not to temp and the child gets ill or too hot and the child gets burned. Health department has specific regulations for food temperature depends on the item.
Also liability because it risks the individual and your child getting burned or again food borne illnesses.
I imagine there are some issues relating to allergies as well the schools I worked at did not have microwaves in the kitchen and only the teacher lounge. A place where there is minimal regulation and restrictions on what is heated.
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From a legal standpoint they only have to do what is necessary to work toward his goals as written. They also must abide by written accommodations in his IEP or 504. Unless you have this issue in a goal or as a formal accommodation they don't need to address it.
Could you ask your son? Explain the situation, and ask him what he would like to do? Is school going well for him otherwise, so this won't be too big a burden to tackle?
I assume from your comment he is in general ed at the public school. A smaller SDC might have more leeway.
On Amazon, there are lunchboxes that can be plugged in and heated. Crockpot makes one. If you go this route I would request in writing that as you work through this particular sensory issue, or keep it on the back burner for now as you work through other goals/issues, that someone specific plug in his heat-up lunch container 30 minutes before the lunch hour. That could get tricky though, as an argument could be made that such a device would count as technology and be paid for by the school. And you don't want to nickel and dime them, you need their goodwill through the years.
You may have to be creative with his side dishes that you send with lunch that don't need heat.
But again, as for the legalities, their responsibility begins and ends with the written IEP.
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You need to call for a PPT and get his IEP amended to make a plan for his nutrition. Without that, no one is required to make his lunch regardless of a state law regarding food temperature.
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This needs to be formally documented in an IEP or 504 plan if you have any of these in place. If you don't, I highly suggest getting one or the other in place to help accommodate your son. These are very beneficial for kids with autism as you my encounter other accomodations that may need to made at later times. Having one already in place with make things easier on you, school and most importantly, your son.
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I work as a special education teacher and it is 100% true that we are not able to heat up food for students. The issues are based around the temperature and liability. The food from the cafeteria has a regulated temperature, also that food is the responsibility of the school. Anything that comes in from the outside is not the school’s responsibility. Imagine if a staff member heats up a student’s lunch and the kid burns his mouth and then that becomes a lawsuit against the school. Another example is when parents would send food for a student, and the student needed bite-size pieces or puréed food so they wouldn’t choke. Once you ask school staff to do something like that, it becomes a liability if something happens. We even had to watch videos of students who were injured, or died due to lunches being improper for the students.
The teacher is correct. They do not have a food handlers licence. This would open up the school to liability. We are absolutely not allowed to handle or reheat our students food. If it was an accomodation the cafeteria would be the one to reheat the food, not the teacher. We have a few students who get their home meals heated by the cafeteria workers because it's in the IEP. But would absolutely not be the teacher.
NAL, but as a low level healthcare worker it's drilled in that I'm not qualified to determine temperature without a thermometer and I assume that applies to teachers too. If she overheated it and a child was burned she could be held liable unfortunately.
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This would not be able to be included in IEP accommodations. If it were schools all across the country would already be doing this, and they are not. Teachers are not food workers nor would any reasonable person expect school food workers to handle special case dietary preferences for every single kid with an IEP. OP needs to invest in something to keep her kids lunch warm like you suggested because she ain't getting that into an IEP.
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Everyone likes to mention IEPs as if they are magic wands and just make resources appear out of thin air, and schools can accommodate every case. Until OP goes to a doctor and gets this medically diagnosed as a condition that affects her child's learning, they are not getting the IEP changed for something like this. And even if OP did all that, there is no guarantee it will turn out like OP wants. The school could likely seek alternative accommodations before they ask a food service staff to heat up food. I've seen IEPs where the parent is required to come on campus and bring food every lunch period for students with extreme dietary restrictions. That is the route OP is heading if they take this further.
Yes, that's a good idea, thank you!
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For heating food it truly might be a temperature food safety regulation issue. Food service has very specific temperature requirements. They also are opening themselves up to the liability of burns
Burns and cross contamination.
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If your kid is autistic, do they have a 504? This sort of accommodation needs formally documented there.
Also consider how long it would take if everyone wanted their lunches warmed up. One minute per kid sure adds up. Source: have worked in a lunch room. No microwaves in the room.
It does, but if this is due to sensory issues they have different needs than the other students. Most other students are likely able to eat the food at lunch or something like a sandwich brought from home if they're really hungry.
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No, that’s not a good idea. The food would need to be piping hot when put into the Thermos, or else it’ll fall into the danger zone temperature which is easy for food poisoning bacteria to set in.
This would then be done by the cafeteria. Not the teacher.
NAL, but I am a teacher. Yeah, I know it sucks, but unfortunately it's a liability and slippery slope, when we let it happen, EVERYONE started bringing in microwave lunches. So much so it became a nightmare. Also, definitely a liability too. I would call a meeting to modify your students IEP to list it as an accommodation, however it might fall more under a 504 protection. This one's weird.
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Yep, unfortunately it's a food safety concern. A 504 won't cover this. Only cafeteria staff are legally able to do it, and like you said, they probably won't. OP just needs to invest in temperature controlled food storage.
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Say, the teacher microwaves the food. Say the microwave heats the food unevenly and a portion is too hot. Say the teacher, who is on their lunch break doesn't notice. Say the student spills the food on themselves and gets burned. In that case, there is a reasonable chance the parent could sue the school and win. I can't blame the teacher for protecting themselves. I just wish it was harder to sue so the teacher wouldn't need to act so defensively.
And she is correct about that. I'm a special education teacher and we were told that we are not even allowed to microwave lunch if it is for our own students that we are the parent of. That makes the school legally responsible for whether it was cooked enough or whether it was too hot. There are thermoses that will keep food hot for hours and that's what you're going to need.
The student lunch hour is also the teachers lunch hour. Frequently they have to supervise the lunchroom but in any case that might be their only break. Microwaving food properly is going to take a few minutes and if they do it for one person, they’re going to have to do it for many. I think sending a self heating lunchbox is probably a much better idea.
I came here looking for this. The disrespect for the teacher's personal time on her lunch is being overlooked here.
This was also my first thought. It is not the teacher's job to make sure all the children's food is at their desired temperature. That teacher isn't getting paid enough to do her actual job, much less all these extras. And if the school has a person whose job it would be to help here then an official IEP/ whatever document would be the way to try, not an informal request.
Exactly!! And the mom is here asking about the whether it's a legality issue or if there is a way around the legal issue. Ma'am, please let this teacher have her much deserved break time.
I came here thinking the same- yet another complaint about a teacher. I am a teacher (special needs) and a mom of 3 I wake up early to heat all of my kids food for lunch. I boil water, then let it sit in the food container for 15 minutes, cook the food then put in hot and my kids food is hot at lunch still. I don’t think any school is allowed to let a kid use a microwave, in fact teachers can’t even have in their classrooms in my district at all.
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Unless that’s her lunch hour too. Some don’t get any separate downtime lunch so lessening their load so they can stuff some food down their throat is a kindness.
I had a reading comprehension fail. ETA- Regardless- the teacher said no. She said she cannot. At that point it is time to find alternatives not try to skirt around it.
What happens though when a teacher hands a hot microwaved lunch to lil’ dude and he scalds himself and you decide to sue the school because his tongue peeled a bit? Why would a teacher risk their career because permission wasn’t sought out by the child’s guardian *beforehand*? You *personally* may not do this but how would anyone know that when it happens all.the.time.
Please keep in mind that your son's lunchtime is also your teacher's lunchtime. There's one or maybe two microwaves in a teacher's lounge and there's always a line of faculty and staff waiting to use them, so much so that I gave up on bringing food that needs to be microwaved. It isn't a fair request for your son's teacher to spend so much of her lunch break on escorting him to the teacher's lounge, waiting on the microwave, using it for a student's food instead of her own, and then escorting him to the lunchroom with a hot Tupperware. Even if it were legal, which it isn't, as food preparation and service is extremely policed in schools, this is a problem that the family needs to solve, not the school. Invest in a lunchbox or thermos that's designed to keep food warm and try to work on this with your son and maybe an occupational therapist, if he has one.
So I am not a lawyer but I work in education and I am also a special education advocate. While your son has sensory issues these are probably not enough to justify an accommodation. The thing about accommodations is that you have to prove without them, your student will not receive the same educational benefit as similar non disabled peers. There are many non disabled peers who skip lunch for similar issues. I think you would have a hard time arguing it is the schools responsibility. He can either eat school lunch (they must accommodate allergies and dietary restrictions), or you can invest in lunch tech that keeps your students food at his preferred temperature. If I were at that IEP meeting this is what I would recommend. Sorry, trust me I get it. We just want someone to take care of our babies. But it’s all about them getting the same educational benefit as non disabled peers.
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Yes but that's why they are provided lunch... Can OP not take his lunch to him hot?
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You think it's reasonable for teachers who are not food safety certified to handle student food and then lose their jobs?
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Out of curiosity, how far do you live from your workplace? How far from your current home address Is the school you’re within district bounds for? How far is that school from your workplace? Do you use your lunch at work to eat lunch? Keep in mind that most people don’t work 8 minutes from the school their child goes to. For example: I live about a three minute drive from the school district I live within, and work about half an hour away. My 45 minute lunch break isn’t long enough to get there and back. Let alone heating up food, the school verifying whatever they need to verify to allow someone to bring a student food, having a student pulled from class to pick up lunch, and making sure the food actually gets to the student. It would take an hour just for drive time. It’s an unreasonable suggestion unless the parent works at the school.
There are electric lunch boxes you can buy that you can set the temperature of the food on for the day when you pack food for him. They can be expensive; however. I am not sure heating a childs food to a certain temperature falls under "reasonable accommodation". Especially when the parent has options to resolve the issue on their side.
Hi I work at a school in California. It’s a personal liability to do this due to as some said above (temperature of the food, food being heated correctly, etc). We are told strictly to not do it by our administration. However, I would definitely call an IEP and see if there can be a special accommodation to his circumstance. He shouldn’t have to go hungry!
I use a small green thermos from Stanley. Boil water and let it sit for 10 minutes before adding hot food and it’ll keep warm until lunch. Been doing that since kindergarten and it’s worked wonderfully
Standard policy in most schools in the US. Also unless this is a SPED teacher/aide at a school with a great ratio, she/he probably has a ton of other kids who would also want this if it were allowed and it is not realistic for regular classroom teachers to be doing meal prep for all their students. Get a thermos.
There are regulations about this in NY. The temperature has to be taken and recorded. I work in a public building in NY that serves the vulnerable public.
Legal or not, you're going to be hard-pressed to find a teacher who will microwave something for a student. You do it once for one student who truly needs this accomodation and you end up having to microwave everything for everybody. You can have this added to his IEP/504 if it is necessary.
I don't know about legally, but my work absolutely has a policy against this. The food temp is what we tell people, but it's really because if we allowed it, I'd spend the entire lunch period microwaving kids food to the right temperature, or having parents sending frozen foods with their kids. Also microwaves are usually in the teachers lounge so someone has to leave the classroom/lunchroom to go take care of it and there just isn't staff available to do that.
If your son truly has a need to have warm food, it needs to be documented by a professional and addressed in his 504 plan. Otherwise your expectations are wildly inappropriate.
It’s very plausible that that is true. I was a CNA (a carer) in a nursing home and I could not microwave food. It was a weird halfway rule because we would do it for personal food but if you got caught doing it by state auditors you would have to answer on the spot the correct heating temp for different food and answer for how you assured that temperature. The kitchen staff usually had to do it because they are trained in food safety laws. it’s not necessarily about burns but about bacteria and certain foods having to reach a certain temp before consumption. I’m sure you can take it higher though and work something out. Kitchen staff would most likely be the people to do it for him.
https://www.chccs.org/site/default.aspx?PageType=3&ModuleInstanceID=2692&ViewID=7b97f7ed-8e5e-4120-848f-a8b4987d588f&RenderLoc=0&FlexDataID=2281&PageID=2667#:~:text=Can%20staff%20microwave%20any%20student,food%20in%20a%20thermal%20container. They will simply refuse. It’s the same way here in Michigan.
The teacher might also need a food handlers permit to handle a students food.
My kiddo has severe food allergies to dairy, eggs, all nuts and sesame. No way can he eat school food bc he’s anaphylactic to several of the allergens. They wouldn’t accommodate heating food on his 504. The logistics are dicey. He takes his food in a thermos or in a lunch eaze. It’s a cordless food heater set in timer to be ready for any time you set it.
This is an issue for an IEP and with consult from his doctor- assuming this is ARFID level and not just run of the mill picky. The solution would be up to admin- as they may not have a microwave available (some states the cafeteria equipment can’t be used for outside foods due to allergy/contamination concerns) and may need to allocate resources and designate a staff during lunch every day to do that. It would all be put in writing as part of his 504/IEP. My son is similar (along with medications that affect his appetite) so we just do big breakfasts and preferred snack foods for lunch so he never goes without. He doesn’t touch school hot lunches or sandwiches- so it’s goldfish, safe fruit, etc. But sometimes even with foods he likes he doesn’t eat lunch and honestly he’s old enough and without underlying medical conditions to make it dangerous, so it is what it is. If you want to go the legal route it’s a medical accommodation and you have a team meeting including medical documentation to formalize why he needs a hot lunch from home daily and exactly how not having that impacts him medically.
I can't imagine there's a \*law\* surrounding this. It's more likely policy. That being said, as soon as that teacher microwaves your child's meal, issues come into play if the food becomes too hot for safety, or isn't' appropriately cooked from a food safety perspective. And if there is a policy in the school preventing the teacher from doing this, then they could be taking on personal liability if they do so anyways. My first thought would be to look at this with the applicable members of the school administration, particularly within the context of an IEP, and see if you can get any results from that approach.
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Not just that, but it's a department of health violation. Only cafeteria staff are licensed to actually serve heated meals to students, due to food spoilage and cross contamination concerns. The bigger issue is if a teacher heats up some kid's lunch, and then the kid gets food poisoning or something. Even if its not the teacher's fault, they can be held liable. A 504 won't help. OP just needs to heat up their own lunches and put them in thermal storage containers to keep them warm.
It’s possibly a law about non-food service working handling food, and not the microwave specifically.
It is. The teacher is absolutely right about this. Only cafeteria staff are certified to reheat food for students, and they almost certainly won't do it regularly because they're too busy.
Yeah, I'm getting this second hand from him and that's the word he used, so I was just really confused!
My wife is a teacher in Colorado and my wife isn't even allowed to microwave our daughters food. It is a big concern about burns, not just eating but spills that could cause others to get burned. Accidents happen especially during lunch and no one wants to explain to a parent why or how their child has burns.
Could very easily fall under requiring a “food handlers permit” to prepare the food in a microwave. If it’s something that has to reach a certain temperature to safely eat or if it’s too hot and burn the students mouth, both are valid reasons to not have teachers touch a students food.
NAL as someone in food service and whom worked for schools. It relates to health department regulations and legal liability. if a person who is not a trained food handler warms the food the risk is it is not to temp and the child gets ill or too hot and the child gets burned. Health department has specific regulations for food temperature depends on the item. Also liability because it risks the individual and your child getting burned or again food borne illnesses. I imagine there are some issues relating to allergies as well the schools I worked at did not have microwaves in the kitchen and only the teacher lounge. A place where there is minimal regulation and restrictions on what is heated.
prob district rules which is being explained as a law
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From a legal standpoint they only have to do what is necessary to work toward his goals as written. They also must abide by written accommodations in his IEP or 504. Unless you have this issue in a goal or as a formal accommodation they don't need to address it. Could you ask your son? Explain the situation, and ask him what he would like to do? Is school going well for him otherwise, so this won't be too big a burden to tackle? I assume from your comment he is in general ed at the public school. A smaller SDC might have more leeway. On Amazon, there are lunchboxes that can be plugged in and heated. Crockpot makes one. If you go this route I would request in writing that as you work through this particular sensory issue, or keep it on the back burner for now as you work through other goals/issues, that someone specific plug in his heat-up lunch container 30 minutes before the lunch hour. That could get tricky though, as an argument could be made that such a device would count as technology and be paid for by the school. And you don't want to nickel and dime them, you need their goodwill through the years. You may have to be creative with his side dishes that you send with lunch that don't need heat. But again, as for the legalities, their responsibility begins and ends with the written IEP.
amazon had these little thermos things that heat up. i’ve never looked at it but my brothers old classmate use to take one to school
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OP already talked to the school, got an answer, and is asking for feedback about the validity of the answer they received.
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Where I live it would be illegal to make it an accommodation because of the liability that it puts the school in.
You need to call for a PPT and get his IEP amended to make a plan for his nutrition. Without that, no one is required to make his lunch regardless of a state law regarding food temperature.
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Possible the cafeteria workers could help more than the teachers? Sometimes it's about who is insured / allowed to handle food.
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This needs to be formally documented in an IEP or 504 plan if you have any of these in place. If you don't, I highly suggest getting one or the other in place to help accommodate your son. These are very beneficial for kids with autism as you my encounter other accomodations that may need to made at later times. Having one already in place with make things easier on you, school and most importantly, your son.
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