About half as many children take part in the school breakfast program as the more than 30 million who eat a hot meal through the school lunch program, according to USDA’s most recent data. The government and the anti-hunger group Food Research and Action Center say that participation in school breakfast grew at a slower rate during the 2016-17 school year than it did in previous years.
More schools offer school lunch, a long-established program, than the more recent school breakfast program. In both programs, a large majority of meals are provided for free to low-income children. The percentage of free meals is markedly higher for breakfast — 79 percent at the start of the current school year versus 66 percent in the lunch program.
FRAC says school breakfast pays off in better scores on tests and in improved student health. In its annual School Breakfast Scorecard, FRAC focused on whether children who qualify for free or reduced-price lunches also had access to school breakfast. West Virginia had the highest rate, 85 percent, followed by New Mexico at 70 percent and the District of Columbia at 68 percent. Utah had the lowest rate in the country, serving breakfast to fewer than 40 low-income students for every 100 in the school lunch program.
More than 20,000 schools in 3,500 districts served breakfast and lunch for free to 9.7 million children through the so-called Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) during the 2016-17 school year, an increase of 2,500 schools and 1.2 million children from the previous school year, said FRAC. The provision is aimed at schools in neighborhoods with high poverty rates and makes food available to all students for free. Schools say they save enough money on administrative costs to offset the cost of the additional meals. For more on the CEP, read FERN’s 2017 story.
The USDA data say that school breakfast participation rose by 90,000 children during the 2016-17 school year. In the four preceding school years, participation grew by 330,000 to 540,000 annually.