Back-to-School Guide:
Four ways to make sure breakfast is on your back-to-school list...
Click here for the latest D.C. Food Stamp Participation Numbers (pdf)
Research shows that eating breakfast improves a child’s learning and behavior – but too many low-income children miss out on a healthy morning meal. Through the federally-funded school breakfast program, Maryland schools can play a pivotal role in making sure that children have a healthy start to the day. Test scores will improve, visits to the school nurse will drop, and children will be more attentive.
The need will be even greater this year. Marylanders are struggling with high bills for food, energy and housing. Schools are struggling too. But, increasing participation in the School Breakfast Program means they can draw down more federal funds – and the economies of scale from serving more children reduces the economic squeeze on school food services. In the 2006-2007 school year, only 43 percent of eligible children in Maryland participated in school breakfast. If just 60 percent of eligible students ate breakfast, Maryland would have gained an additional $7.9 million in federal funding.
Four ways to make sure breakfast is on your back-to-school list:
1. Schools can start up a program that provides breakfast to all children at no charge. Many children, including poor children, don’t participate because they feel there is a stigma attached (their classmates say that only poor children eat breakfast at school). Universal breakfast erases that stigma and can help children from struggling families at varying income levels. As a result, test scores go up and health problems go down throughout the school.
2. Schools can look at different ways to serve breakfast – like in the classroom or from “grab and go” carts set up in the hallways. Participation in school breakfast dramatically increases – even more than breakfast free for all in the cafeteria – when it is offered in the classroom. And, older children like the “grab and go” carts, since they can take their breakfast and eat with their friends.
3. Outreach is essential. Too many children don’t participate simply because they or their families don’t know their school offers a breakfast program.
4. When superintendents, principals and other administrators put their full support behind breakfast programs, participation reaches the fullest potential. Principals, superintendents and other administrators see the health, educational and financial gains from school breakfast. As a result, they are committed to expanding the program.