A New York middle school is apologizing after serving students with a meal on the first day of Black History Month that was deemed to be culturally insensitive.
\nAdministrators at Nyack Middle School say that the hot lunch menu was changed by the vendor without their knowledge on February 1st, the first day of Black History Month, to include chicken and waffles with a watermelon dessert which the school\u2019s principal called an \u201cunfortunate situation\u201d, The Journal News reported.
\n\u201cWe are extremely disappointed by this regrettable situation and apologize to the entire Nyack community for the cultural insensitivity displayed by our food service provider,\u201d Nyack Middle School Principal David Johnson said in a statement.
\n\u201cI am disappointed that Aramark would serve items that differed from the published monthly menu. Especially items that reinforce negative stereotypes concerning the African-American Community.\u201d
\nMultiple families expressed outrage over the menu selection including parent Lindsay Siegel who told the outlet that it was \u201creally disappointing\u201d the change wasn\u2019t caught.
\nAramark, the school district\u2019s food vendor, issued a statement on the matter on Thursday.
\n\u201cWhile our menu was not intended as a cultural meal, we acknowledge that the timing was inappropriate, and our team should have been more thoughtful in its service,\u201d the Aramark statement said. \u201cThis was a mistake and does not represent the values of our company, and we are committed to doing better in the future.\u201d
\nAramark also said that it will be partnering with the school to provide sensitivity training for employees who work at the school to make sure their actions align with the district\u2019s \u201cvision and commitment to equity-driven work.\u201d
\n\u201cWe believe this will provide a good learning opportunity to deepen understanding on the impact of systemic biases and negative stereotypes concerning the African-American Community,\u201d the statement said.
\nAramark has found itself in similar situations in years past including an incident in 2011 where UC California-Irvine, an Aramark client, was criticized for serving a \u201cMLH Holiday Special\u201d that featured chicken and waffles.
\nFox News Digital reached out to Nyack Middle School and Aramark but did not immediately receive a response.<\/p>\n
Nypost<\/p>\n
Tags\uff1aBlack History Month<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A New York middle school is apologizing after serving students with a meal on the first day of Black History Month that was deemed to be culturally insensitive. Administrators at Nyack Middle School say that the hot lunch menu was changed by the vendor without their knowledge on February 1st, the first day of Black History Month, to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":5345,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1152],"tags":[2283,1675,1408],"class_list":["post-5344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-humanrights","tag-day","tag-first","tag-school"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5344"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5344\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5346,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5344\/revisions\/5346"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}