The great majority of children who eat breakfast at school get the food for free or at low cost because they come from low-income households. Breakfast participation rates rose in the 2017-18 school year, and a report issued Wednesday by the anti-hunger Food Research & Action Center attributed the increase to decisions by schools to serve breakfast in classrooms and to serve meals to all pupils free of charge.
In its annual School Breakfast Scorecard, FRAC said that an average of 12.5 million schoolchildren a day ate breakfast for free or at a reduced price in the past school year. Participation rose by 1.2 percent from the 2016-17 school year, the latest in annual increases that stretch back to the program’s inception. Roughly 85 percent of all school breakfasts are served free or at reduced rates.
“The benefits of school breakfast are numerous — less hunger, better test scores, improved student health, and fewer distractions from hunger during classroom learning,” said FRAC president Jim Weill.
FRAC said that breakfast participation by low-income children had risen even as the improving U.S. economy had reduced the number of eligible students. West Virginia and New Mexico had the highest participation rates when compared to the number of children who received free or reduced-price lunches. Utah’s participation rate was the lowest. The government reimburses schools for each breakfast served, ranging from 30 cents for each paid breakfast to $1.75 for a free meal.
“The increase in participation, as in previous years, was driven substantially by more schools moving breakfast out of the cafeteria and into the classroom, thus making breakfast part of the school day,” said the report. “In addition, increased school breakfast participation was due to more schools offering breakfast [and lunch] at no charge, primarily through the Community Eligibility Provision, along with improvements in identifying low-income children who are eligible for free school meals. These proven strategies overcome the timing and stigma barriers common to a traditional school breakfast program that is served in the cafeteria before the school day starts.”
Schools have three options when they serve “breakfast after the bell.” They can deliver meals to each classroom at the start of the day, offer “grab and go” food kiosks in the hallways, or provide “second chance” breakfasts that are served after the first class period.
More than 24,000 schools, with a combined enrollment of 11.6 million students, participated in the Community Eligibility Provision, which allows schools in areas with high poverty rates to offer meals to all students for free, said FRAC. That was an increase of 4,000 schools and 1.9 million children from the previous school year. Some 89,377 U.S. schools ran a breakfast program in 2017-18, and 95,399 offered school lunch.
FRAC said that “many more states should pass school breakfast legislation” that can variously require schools to provide breakfast in the classroom or via an alternative approach, require schools in high-poverty areas to serve breakfast at no charge to all students, or eliminate reduced-price breakfasts so more students get the meal for free.
School food programs were created to assure good nutrition for all students. Low-income children have accounted for the bulk of school breakfast participants since the earliest years of the program. Since 1991, more than half of school lunches have been free or provided at a reduced price.