FRAC Puts Breakfast on the Table
How do school breakfast programs compare to school lunch programs? Record numbers of low-income children received school meals during the 2009-2010 school year, but the Food Research and Action Center says the number of children eating breakfast continues to lag far behind the number of children eating lunch. FRAC's nnual school breakfast reports show that although the demand for school meals (both breakfast and lunch) increased as a result of the deepening recession, the growth in the breakfast program in the 2009-2010 school year (compared to 2008-2009) continued to be greater, proportionally, than the growth in school lunch. Still, only 47 low-income children ate breakfast for every 100 that ate lunch.
If more schools adopted ways to get breakfast out of the
cafeteria and in front of hungry children, FRAC knows that participation could increase. Breakfast in America’s Big Cities
found that higher rates of breakfast participation were achieved by school
districts that offered breakfast free to all students (also known as universal
breakfast), served breakfast in the classroom at the start of the school day
rather than in the cafeteria, or offered “grab and go” breakfasts from carts in
the hallway. In fact, of the top ten urban school districts profiled in the
report, all provide universal free breakfast throughout their district, and all
but two have large-scale in-classroom breakfast programs.
To accelerate participation growth, FRAC urged states and school districts to
put breakfast in the classroom programs on a fast track to implementation. FRAC
also urged states to look at their application processes for school meals and
to conduct frequent outreach throughout the school year. Other facts from the reports include:
• Nationally, breakfast participation grew to include 9.4
million children during the 2009-2010 school year, an increase of 663,000
children over the previous school year – and the largest increase since FRAC
began tracking participation in 1991.
• Over the past two school years, participation in breakfast
grew by nearly 1.2 million low-income children.
• The 2009-2010 school year also saw the largest increase in
lunch participation recorded by FRAC; the program reached nearly 20 million
low-income children on an average school day.
The School Breakfast Scorecard charts participation at the national and state level and School Breakfast in America's Big Cities looks at participation at the local level, analyzing trends in 29 urban school districts-- click the link below for access to the full reports.
