The article is “With one change, this school doubled the number of kids eating school breakfast.”* and I thought Frederick Douglass Elementary in Leesburg, Massachusetts, had an idea that ought to be passed on.
Less than 10 percent of students at Frederick Douglass Elementary in Leesburg were eating school breakfast last school year, and educators noticed the impact: Students were fidgety and cranky and sometimes had to leave class to see the school nurse because of stomach aches.
About one-third of the Loudoun County school’s students qualify for free- or reduced-price meals, but many of those children were not eating breakfast at school. The reason? Students were worried a sit-down breakfast in the cafeteria would make them late in the midst of the rush to get to class. Cathy Wilson, the school’s cafeteria manager, said she believed the bustling cafeteria was intimidating some students so much that they just didn’t want to walk in.
So Wilson came up with a solution: Let children grab their breakfasts and go straight to class with the meals.
The idea, implemented at the start of 2015, has had dramatic results. The number of students eating school breakfast has more than doubled from the start of last school year to this school year, going from 60 to 130.
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The part about being late matters, but I’d say that much of the charm of this idea comes from the privilege of being able to eat in class. Why not, though? I let kids eat in class with the understanding that oranges and sticky or crumbly treats are not allowed. But the right granola bar or apple does not cause much mess. Frankly, even sticky treats could be fine provided teachers allowed time and kept the wipes necessary for clean-up.
I’d really like to throw my support behind first period breakfast. Hungry kids become cranky kids as the morning wears on. They become drifty kids. Sometimes they become sleepy kids. The days when the family sat down to a leisurely, sit-down breakfast before school are long gone for many families, if those days ever existed. We eat on a catch-as-catch-can basis regularly. McDonalds and Dunkin Donuts are counting on that drive-thru lifestyle. The result can be a pack of hungry kids who take the bus and did not quite make it to the cafeteria on time.
Do you work in a school? Why not bring this up in the teacher’s lounge? Are you a parent with a kid prone to stomach aches and morning disciplinary issues? Why not discuss this with school administration? A few crumbs and spills will create an extra bit of disarray as breakfast moves into the classroom, but the payoff in alert and focused students could prove worth the effort. Certainly, I’d be willing to try this experiment in my school. I strongly suspect the results would be worth the extra clean-up required.
* https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/with-one-change-this-school-doubled-the-number-of-kids-eating-school-breakfast/2016/04/05/561089cc-fb47-11e5-80e4-c381214de1a3_story.html