Lawsuit: students served pretzels with oven cleaner
The gist
An Oregon family sued a school district for up to $950,220.85 after a sixth-grader ate oven-cleaner pretzels.
The case tests how far schools must go to keep chemicals away from food.
How it unfolded
- Oct 20, 2025About 37 pretzels coated with crushed concentrated oven cleaner, a caustic chemical containing sodium hydroxide, were served at sixth-grade lunch; more than 50 students ate all or part of them.
- Oct 20, 2025Poison Control was not contacted until about 27 minutes after staff realized what happened, and the first email to families went out nearly two hours after students ate the pretzels.
- Oct 20, 2025Tigard Police closed their investigation the same day after speaking with the kitchen lead by phone, saying they had no kitchen photos or video and could not establish probable cause.