King/Drew Magnet High School of Medicine and Science has spent four decades turning students from Willowbrook and Compton into future physicians, oncologists, neurosurgeons, and ER specialists. Its students shadow doctors at UCLA’s Ronald Reagan Medical Center. They practice phlebotomy on mannequins. They graduate at rates approaching 100% and receive UC system admissions letters by the hundreds. So it’s at least a little ironic that the LA County Department of Public Health ordered the cafeteria closed yesterday, March 25, 2026, citing a major vermin violation — evidence of rodents in a building full of aspiring healthcare professionals. LAUSD says it’s less alarming than it sounds, and the district’s response has been swift. But their own staff acknowledges that in a system managing 684 school kitchens, this is not exactly a rare occurrence.
What the Health Department Found
The LA County Department of Public Health flagged an 11-point major vermin violation — the category that triggers mandatory immediate closure under county protocols — along with lower-level findings for plumbing, equipment condition, floors, ceilings, and ventilation. Under county inspection guidelines, a major vermin finding constitutes an imminent health hazard: the presence of pests “evidenced by actual live bodies, fresh droppings or vomitus, urine stains, or gnaw marks” that could result in food or equipment contamination, per the LA County Department of Public Health. That’s the standard the county applied here. The cafeteria was closed.
What LAUSD Says
Hoodline reached Soniya Perl of the LAUSD Food Services Division, who offered the district’s account. “They didn’t find any rodents,” Perl said. “They found a few little droppings.” She said the Health Department characterized the closure as “just out of an abundance of caution,” and emphasized that there is no evidence food was contaminated or that students were exposed to any health risk. “We are very diligent at looking at our cartons, any openings in our food containers,” she said.
As for how pest evidence ends up in a school kitchen at all — Perl was candid. “Because we’re a kitchen, sometimes the doors get left open. We have water and food — the types of things a pest is looking for.” She was quick to add: “We always take it very seriously.” Whether “always” fully squares with “it’s not an anomaly” — also her words — is something the district may want to sit with. When asked to characterize the scale of the problem, Perl said plainly: “It’s not an anomaly. It’s not a huge infestation.” That’s meant as reassurance, but it does raise the question of how often this kind of thing happens across 684 facilities, and how consistently families are informed when it does.
Perl said this closure came from one of two routine annual inspections the district pays for, not a community complaint. “We pay for two annual inspections from the Health Department. In addition to internal inspections and protocols as well.” She noted that cafeteria workers do daily walkthroughs — “they look behind ovens and behind doors” — so the finding catching the district off guard suggests either those checks missed something or conditions changed quickly between walkthroughs.
The Response Plan
Students are being fed from the central kitchen in the meantime. “We’re getting food from our central kitchen for the next few days,” Perl said — a contingency the district apparently runs smoothly for all manner of disruptions, from sewage backups to hot water failures to pest findings. “We routinely have closures for various reasons. We have a system in place to handle this kind of thing.” The plan at King/Drew is a weekend deep clean followed by a reinspection early next week. “We wait for a couple of days to make sure there is absolutely no activity. Then when we are absolutely sure, we call for a re-inspection.”…