A Regina school is removing student-use microwaves. The division argues that it is a safety and timeliness issue. They say that re-heatable foods in school lunches might sit at room temperature for too long, that they can get too hot, or finally that they might take too long to actually warm up for students. The argument does not really hold water, however, and feels like a cost-saving measure disguised as a health one.
Schools have had microwaves in them for decades. In that time, the amount of children actually injured by a microwave is not exactly statistically significant. While it's possible that there have been food poisoning cases or cases where kids have over-heated their meals, it's not a large enough issue to be a major problem. There are certainly people who might be concerned about the quality of food that is actually being warmed in the microwave, but that food is generally decided by the parent sending a lunch as opposed to students or staff.
The issue seems to be most connected to the machines themselves. Let's be clear here, students are hard on microwaves. They get damaged, they get filled with gross food goo that needs to be cleaned out repeatedly, they're in heavy use by a subset of the population which is generally hard on most of the equipment they use. Public use microwaves tend to have a shorter life expectancy as a rule, but when combined with a heavy-use lunch hour by mostly youth, you're looking at periodic replacement at a minimum, as well as a repeated and frankly disgusting cleaning regimen.
I would actually be okay with those reasons as an explanation. If the schools removing the microwaves are trying to increase enrollment in a healthy lunch program, I would also be okay with that as an explanation. I can understand why a school would not want the headache of a student-use microwave and the inability to get a hot meal outside of a lunch program would make that program more appealing to students and parents. If the schools themselves were honest that the microwaves were removed for one of these two reasons, I could accept it.
However, by saying it's a student safety issue, it starts to sound as though the school divisions are making up reasons. For decades students have survived the dangers of being in schools where microwaves were available for use. Some of them have thrived, and now have kids of their own attending class. It's going to be difficult for us to actually believe that microwaves are such a danger to students that they have to be removed for their own safety. The suggestion that today's students need to be protected from this reheating menace is transparently ridiculous and actually insulting to both parents and children.
However, cost reasons can be believable, as well as a desire to grow the school's own lunch programs, and I can even get behind schools directing the cost of microwaves towards something else entirely. I do not believe the safety reasons, because they were not an issue when I was in school and it is absurd to suggest new students can't handle a simple appliance. Student safety is often used as an excuse to change programs, web picspeople want their kids safe, but respect people and give them a believable explanation.
