Nearly half of the city's schools are not making the grade in cafeteria cleanliness.

That's according to a study done by students at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism.

It states that city inspectors found over 1,000 critical violations at nearly half of the 1,400 lunch rooms they looked at.

In some cases, rats and vermin were found in the cafeterias.

The report also found that some of the school's with the worst inspection records also serve some of the city's poorest students.

In a statement the Department of Education says it will work closely with the Department of Health to investigate. 

The DOE says that 98 percent of schools passed their inspections in 2017.