Culinary students limited by law
Lack of documents bars some training
A 2011 change in state requirements for food-handler cards has forced students who can’t prove legal U.S. residency out of culinary training programs at Valley public schools.
Some school-district officials are now asking Maricopa County leaders to find a solution that would give students permission to handle food in public places while they are in high school. That would allow most students, regardless of residency status, into district culinary programs.
But county officials say their hands are tied. The county Environmental Services Department, which issues food-handler cards, must adhere to state law.
It is illegal for public-school administrators to discriminate against students based on their legal status. But the new requirement forces schools to be discriminatory in allowing students access to a full culinary program.
“It’s wreaked havoc at the culinary programs at schools,” Maricopa County Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox said. “Nobody is denying the undocumented the ability to go to school, but now they’re being denied training.”
Most advanced culinary programs require students to obtain the same full food-handler card that businesses require, because they work in commercial kitchens that are licensed through the county. While the students are not paid, obtaining the card is currently a requirement of the programs.
In order to avoid publicly discriminating, the district has added language to culinary course descriptions that outlines the residency requirement, as a warning to those who may not qualify. In some schools, counselors tell students about the requirement before they begin selecting classes, to avoid uncomfortable — and potentially illegal — situations.
Students self-select out of the program if they know they do not have the appropriate proof-of-residency documents, said Kate McDonald, principal of Metro Tech High School, Arizona’s largest vocational school. Metro Tech is part of the Phoenix Union High School District, the Valley’s largest. More than 150 students are enrolled in Metro Tech’s culinary program, which requires foodhandler cards.
The residency requirement also applies to about 800 district high-school students in programs that serve food to children at licensed day-care centers.
“Give our kids a chance to get educated. That’s all we’re asking for,” said Pamela Richards, who oversees career and technicaleducation programs for Phoenix Union.
Rep. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, sponsored 2011 legislation enacting the requirement. It was an anti-illegal-immigration bill designed to prevent undocumented residents from working in the food and hospital- ity industries.
A Senate bill now moving through the Legislature, sponsored by Sen. Katie Hobbs, DPhoenix, could address some of the educators’ concerns.
Senate Bill 1404 has been described as adding an exemption to allow Canadian snowbirds and legal residents with out-ofstate driver’s licenses to volunteer at food establishments.
The wording leaves room for interpretation of whether proof of legal residency would be required for volunteer food-handler’s cards.
According to Kavanagh, the bill would allow people to obtain volunteer food-handler cards regardless of their legal status. He said he supports it because volunteer cards would not qualify their holders to get permanent jobs.
“Anything that lets an illegal immigrant get a job and get paid encourages them to stay. This (bill) doesn’t let them do that,” Kavanagh said.
Maricopa County maintains it will not change its requirements for issuing food-handler cards without a legal review of statutory changes.
The Glendale Union High School District has about 1,200 culinary students. In the past, all were required to have food-handler cards to work in the program’s catering service. Now, beginner-level students without cards can learn food preparation and food safety by preparing dishes for themselves. Only those who are able to obtain the cards move on to advanced courses in which they serve others.
Volunteer cards without the residency requirement would help the program expand the number of students participating in advanced course work, said Amanda Shively, the district’s director of career and technical education.
“It’s kind of a catch-22,” Shively said. “There is that argument that we don’t want to prepare people who aren’t here legally for employment purposes. Yet we have those people in our schools, and our schools are charged with giving everyone the best education we can. So that’s my job. Unfortunately, we’re caught in the middle.”
But culinary students with volunteer cards still would not be able to enroll at the East Valley Institute of Technology, a public education district that provides career and technical education for 10 school districts in the East Valley.
EVIT’s facility is a licensed commercial business. The culinary program is intensive and trains students to be employable entry-level candidates. The district’s funding is tied to the number of students placed into jobs upon graduation.
The district adapted to the 2011 change in card requirements and warned students about it. Students weeded themselves out. Putting students through rigorous training for a field in which they had little prospect of employment would not be doing them a favor, said Michael Turcotte, executive chef instructor at EVIT.
“By not giving them all the up-front truth, ... honestly, we’re setting them up to fail,” Turcotte said.