The Newton County School System was notified on Feb. 4 that the U. S. Department of Agriculture has placed an administrative hold on certain cases of ground beef crumbles the district recently received. Upon notification, the school system immediately identified cases of beef from the list of "On Hold" lot numbers and isolated them from the rest of the food inventory. According to the USDA, the hold is a result of an investigation for the possible inhumane treatment of cattle at a processing plant.