By Bryan Thompson, KPR
TOPEKA — More Kansas kids may soon get free breakfast at school.
A program called Breakfast in the Classroom has added Kansas and six other states to the list of those eligible for its grants, bringing the total number of states to 18. The program has been in place since 2012 in the Kansas City, Kan., school district, but schools throughout the rest of Kansas will be eligible to apply this year.
Schools that take part in this private initiative offer breakfast to all students at no charge. Breakfast is served in the classroom rather than the cafeteria.
The idea is to maximize participation in the federal School Breakfast Program by eliminating obstacles that keep students from starting the day with a healthy meal. Those include school bus schedules, late arrivals to school, pressure to go directly to class and reluctance to be labeled as “low-income” by attending the breakfast program.
According to a 2013 analysis by the Food Research and Action Center, most U.S. schools participate in the federally funded School Breakfast Program, but only half of the low-income children eligible for a free or reduced-price breakfast are actually eating it.
“The benefits of children eating breakfast at school are well-documented and expansive,” said Princess Moss, secretary-treasurer of the National Education Association.
She said those benefits include better performance on standardized tests, better attendance and less disruption in the classroom.
The number of affected schools and children in Kansas won’t be known until after school districts apply for the funding. Until now, no state has had more than two school districts approved for the grants. The funding is for equipment and startup costs to change the way the food is delivered — not for the food itself. That comes via the federal School Breakfast Program.
During the last four years, 37,000 children have benefited from Breakfast in the Classroom. The Wal-Mart Foundation provided $5 million to fund the program this year.
The consortium of national education and nutrition organizations that run the program, known as Partners for Breakfast in the Classroom, anticipates adding another 25,000 students over the next two years.
More than 3,000 kids in 13 Kansas City, Kan., schools have taken part in the program. District spokeswoman Tammy Dodderidge said teachers have noticed a sharp drop in the number of students bringing soft drinks and chips to school since they began getting breakfast at school.
Almost 90 percent of the students in the Kansas City, Kan., school district qualify for free or reduced-price meals. Before Breakfast in the Classroom, only 37 percent of the students in the 13 participating schools took part in the breakfast program.
The program chooses individual school districts based on the number of students who qualify for free or reduced-price meals and participate in the federal school breakfast program and the level of local support.
Bryan Thompson is a reporter for Heartland Health Monitor, a news collaboration focusing on health issues and their impact in Missouri and Kansas