The adage that breakfast is the most important meal of the day has national and nutrition organizations working together to provide “Breakfast in the Classroom” for all students.

All Mississippi students in qualifying schools could soon benefit from the Breakfast In the Classroom (The Partners) program, which has added Mississippi and nine other states to the list of those eligible for the grant-funded program.

Schools that take part in this initiative offer breakfast to all students at no charge, and breakfast is served in the classroom rather than the cafeteria. Across participating states, the Partners has a goal of increasing access to a nutritious morning meal for 30,000 students.

School districts will be selected based on the number of students that qualify for free or reduced meals, average daily participation in the school breakfast program and district and school-level support.

According to www.breakfastintheclassroom.org – the breakfast in the classroom initiative takes the traditional school breakfast approach and improves it with one key ingredient: the classroom. Breakfast becomes available to everyone – no matter the income level – and it’s eaten after the opening bell. This makes it possible for all children to participate.

The approach is simple. Children eat together in the classroom. usually the homeroom, at the start of the school day, after the morning bell. They enjoy nutritionally well-balanced foods such as breakfast wraps, yogurt, or fruit served directly in their classroom, grabbed from a cart in the hallway, or picked up in the cafeteria and taken to the classroom. Students eat breakfast while the teacher takes attendance, collects homework or teaches a short lesson plan so that no instructional time is lost.

The application process for Mississippi schools will begin soon, and will be implemented in the 2017-18 school year in the fall, said Joyce Helmick, president of the Mississippi Association of Educators.

“All districts will receive the information and it will be channeled down to the school,” Helmick said. “We are also using our membership – our teachers in the different districts to encourage their principals and superintendent to participate in the program, or at least look at it and see if they are eligible for participation. There is an application process they will go through and if approved they will be notified.

“One criteria school districts will have to meet – 70 percent of the students are eligible for free or reduced lunch, she said.”

Grant funding from the Partners for Breakfast in the Classroom to help bring healthy morning meals into the classroom would have an invaluable impact on students and we encourage school districts across the state to apply, Helmick said.

“The proven benefits of moving breakfast from the cafeteria to the classroom include better attendance records, less tardiness, fewer behavioral and discipline problems and that’s just to name a few. Those benefits are what the students in Mississippi deserve,” Helmick said.

While many school districts participate in the federally-funded School Breakfast Program, its performance in reducing childhood hunger has fallen short of its potential. On average, just more than half of children who are eligible for the free or reduced-price breakfast are actually eating it, Helmick said.

“The difference in this plan – it expands free breakfast to all students, no matter the income level, and it’s eaten in the classroom after the opening bell,” Helmick said. “The students are all eating breakfast and are getting a healthy breakfast in the morning. Sometimes even the kids who don’t get free breakfast, don’t eat because the parents may be in a hurry, or they are too sleepy.

“It just gives every child the opportunity to have a good breakfast and get started on the right foot. Plus, they enjoy getting to school on time so they can have breakfast with their friends in the classroom.”

Renee’ Foreman, Child Nutrition Director, Lauderdale County School District, said it’s important for students to have their nutritional needs met.

“Having been a classroom teacher for 26 years, I also know it is very important not to be hungry when you are trying to learn and stay on task,” Foreman said. “If you haven’t taken care of those basic needs you can’t move on to the next level of thinking. Anytime you can offer more students the opportunity to meet those needs, of course, it will help.

“While our breakfast is good, right now less than 50 percent of our students participate in school breakfast.”

When asked if the Lauderdale County School District will apply for the program, Foreman said: “When we talk about Breakfast In the Classroom – I know as a district if there is something out there that will help the student not only perform better – but more importantly be a healthier person; then they will do everything they can to make that happen.”

Foreman voiced one concern with the program.

“We have to be careful when you are talking about “after the bell rings” then you start getting into instructional time,” Foreman said. “I’m talking more as a teacher than the child nutrition director. The food is not the topic. Of course, if children can have free food that is subsidized and we don’t have to worry about them paying for it, and every child gets the same opportunities, I will jump in with both feet, without a doubt.

“The idea of after the bell rings – not so sure, because then you have to balance your instructional time that is mandated by the state – to meet so many minutes of instructional time. But, I say yes if it’s a program that we can offer our students, and if we qualify, I will definitely pursue that.”

 

Fresh Start Stats

• Breakfast is critical to childhood learning and health, yet many children start the school day hungry.

• In 2013, 15.8 million children – more than 1 in 5 of all children in the U.S. – live in households that struggled with hunger.

• A little over half of the low-income children who are eligible for a free or reduced-priced breakfast through the federal School Breakfast Program are eating it.

• Lack of awareness about the School Breakfast Program, lack of time to eat breakfast, late bus schedules, and stigma associated with the program are some of the reasons students don’t eat school breakfast when it is served in the cafeteria.

Key Ingredients for Peak Student Performance

• Eating breakfast at school improves academic performance, health and behavior.

• Children who eat breakfast at school perform better on standardized tests than those who skip breakfast or eat breakfast at home. Providing breakfast to students at school improves their concentration, alertness, comprehension, memory, and learning. Participating in school breakfast also is associated with improved math grades, attendance and punctuality.

• Students who participate in school breakfast show improved attendance, behavior, and standardized achievement test scores as well as decreased tardiness.

Creating an Appetite for Breakfast in the Classroom:

• Breakfast in the classroom takes the traditional school breakfast approach and improves it by moving it to the classroom. Breakfast is available to every child, no matter the family’s income level, making it possible for all children to participate.

• Funded by the Walmart Foundation, Partners for Breakfast in the Classroom provides technical assistance and support to school districts to implement the program.

• The Partners, a consortium of national education and nutrition organizations, includes the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC), the National Association of Elementary School Principals Foundation (NAESPF), the School Nutrition Foundation (SNF) and The NEA Foundation.

• Since 2010, the Partners have helped 15 high-need school districts across the U.S. implement the Breakfast in the Classroom program resulting in more than 37,000 students starting their day with a healthy breakfast.

Breakfast Facts according to breakfastintheclassroom.org