Travis Volk has seen it too often in his classroom – fast-growing kids struggling to keep up on not-so-nutritious fumes.
A girl would jump-start her day on soda pop and chips, Volk witnessed, only to see her enthusiasm fade, her focus wane as she became disengaged from the learning process.
“We’ve had kids come to school without meals before or come to school with junk food, a fast-food breakfast,” said Volk, a first-grade teacher at Auburn’s Washington Elementary School. “You see how their behavior changes because of low-quality, convenient meals.”
The Auburn School District and public schools throughout the state are looking to change those habits to get kids to eat healthier and come better prepared to learn.
State School Superintendent Randy Dorn joined local school leaders, the Children’s Alliance, Share Our Strength, the Washington State Dairy Council and other partnerships to launch the statewide Fuel Up First with Breakfast Challenge, an awareness, educational and participatory campaign aimed at getting children to eat right.
“A nutritious breakfast calms rumbling stomachs and focuses young minds,” said Dorn (pictured), who addressed school officials and nutritional experts at a leadership summit and breakfast demonstration at Washington Elementary on Monday. “The Fuel Up First with Breakfast Challenge will help make sure kids are ready to learn when the bell rings.
“We know that when kids have a nutritional breakfast that they do better in school,” Dorn said. “They do better academically, are better behavior wise. They also have a healthy lifestyle in the foods they eat, and they maintain a better weight with (good school program) exercise.”
Nearly half of the state’s students qualify for free breakfast at public schools, yet few actually access it, campaign officials said. The campaign’s goal is to challenge schools and school districts to increase participation in the federally-funded school breakfast programs by 50 percent in the next two years. School districts that make the greatest improvements will receive cash prizes and recognition.
As Dorn explains, the more meals a school district serves, the more federal and state dollars will come in to support school nutrition programs. If all Washington schools rose to the challenge and boosted participation by 50 percent, officials pointed out, school breakfast programs across the state would bring in $18 million more in federal reimbursements.
While low-income kids account for the greatest share of participation in the program, more than half of those who eat lunch each day don’t access the school breakfast program, campaign officials say.
“I always try to look at the glass half full,” Dorn said. “(With the) downturn in the economy, people are looking at ways to provide for their families. This is one way to do that. … More people can qualify. We need to work on getting it out there to parents.
“I believe in this program, I believe in this project,” Dorn added. “This is a very big benefit to the K-12 system.”
Auburn is doing its part.
The school district’s Child Nutrition Services Department, which has been regionally recognized for its whole-foods and farm-to-school approach in nutrition, serves a higher percentage of breakfasts than most school districts in the state. Nearly 4,000 breakfasts are served every day during the school year.
Washington Elementary, with an enrollment of 450 students, is one of the many Auburn schools that rely on free and reduced breakfast and lunch meals. Principal Pauline Thomas said 74 percent of her students qualify for free and reduced meals.
In Auburn schools with the highest free-and-reduced meals, some 80 to 90 percent of the students eat breakfast every morning at school.
Without the program, Thomas insists, many kids go to class hungry.
And that alarms school leaders and nutritional experts.
“People are going hungry. As American citizens, we just don’t like that statement,” Dorn said. “We should do something about it.”
How a school distributes meals varies by its size and nature. Auburn elementary schools were built without cafeterias, yet effectively serve meals in hallways and classrooms.
Washington Elementary is an example of a successful classroom breakfast approach.
Children are served breakfast at their desk. As they eat, attendance is taken, homework collected and announcements read. Little instruction time is lost.
When everyone eats, no one is singled out for eating or needing a school breakfast, giving each student a chance to eat, increasing participation and reducing tardiness.
In other schools, students “grab-and-go” breakfast and head back to class to eat and prepare for the day.
Middle and high schools students, however, might be harder to reach, school officials say. School districts are encouraged to design meal programs to meet those needs of older students.
For more information about the challenge, visit www.fuelupfirstwithbreakfast.org.
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Other links: visit www.k12.wa.us
