District, Health Department Investigate After Students Get Sick

Riverside County health investigators and leaders with the Coachella Valley Unified School District were investigating why more than 50 students at Cesar Chavez Elementary School got sick after eating their school lunch on Monday.

A parent alerted KESQ News Channel 3 to the incident.

The principal of Cesar Chavez Elementary did not return our calls, but the Riverside County Dept. of Health confirmed their workers were called to inspect the kitchen at the school.

Maria Estrada, Food Services Director for CVUSD, said the inspectors gave the school a score of 99 out of 100 during the inspection, where they looked at cleanliness and food temperature.

They also took samples from trays of food from Tuesday’s breakfast and lunch.

Those samples are now being analyzed, and the results will be back later this week.

The school’s lunch menu states the students were served taco salads with ground beef, shredded lettuce, cheese, avacado sauce and apple cobbler.

The school and health department were both interviewing the students who got sick to see if there are any similarities that could help them find what made that many students sick at the same time.

The district isn’t certain it was the food that cause the students to become sick.