The Plan to End Childhood Hunger

Free nutritious breakfast will Be offered to all District of Columbia school children.

It all starts with breakfast. Children who start the day with a nutritious meal grow up healthier, do better in school, and lead more productive lives.

In school year 2004-05, on a typical school day, only 41 percent of low-income children took advantage of the school breakfast program available for free in all District of Columbia public schools and many charter schools. That figure increased to 50 percent for school year 2007-08.

Moving forward, the Partnership will continue working with schools and other key stakeholders to make breakfast more accessible and appealing, and to ensure that all students – and their families – are aware of school breakfast.

As part of our public education work, we will expand the reach of our “School Breakfast, That’s What’s Up” campaign to tell students, teachers, families, and school administrators about the importance and availability of breakfast.

We will continue working with schools to make breakfast more convenient by promoting ways of serving breakfast that have proven effective in urban school districts. These models include breakfast in the classroom, “grab and go” carts in the hallways, and “second chance” breakfast served in secondary schools between first and second periods. Traditional before-the-bell, cafeteria-based breakfast service misses too many children – bus schedules, parents' schedules, a desire to socialize on the playground, even slow moving security lines, all can keep kids from getting to class ready to learn instead of being hungry.

And we will explore ways to make school breakfast more attractive to older children who currently do not participate in the program.

The Partnership’s work to expand school breakfast will mean more low-income children in the District will start their day with a healthy meal which paves the way to better nutrition, improved test scores, reduced absenteeism and visits to the school nurse.

Since 2006 the Partnership, with D.C. Hunger Solutions in the lead, has:

• Partnered with D.C. Public Schools (DCPS) to implement free, universal breakfast, and encouraged many charter schools to follow suit.
• Supported Friendship Edison Charter School in its successful pilot of classroom breakfast. Breakfast participation rates increased from 32 to 60 percent of the school’s 527 elementary students.
• Partnered with DCPS to implement breakfast-in-the-classroom in three elementary schools, starting February of 2009.
• Spoken to student groups and published articles in newsletters to parents, teachers and principals about the importance of breakfast and its benefits.
• Trained 250 DCPS Food and Nutrition Services employees in the importance of breakfast and how breakfast-in-the-classroom models help increase participation.
• Partnered with DCPS, the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) and community groups to lead an application-collection campaign designed to maximize student enrollment in free and reduced-price meals.
• Provided technical assistance to public charter schools that helped bring school breakfast to 70 of the 77 campuses, up from 12 in 2002.

2009-2010 Goals

55 percent of low-income students that participate in free and reduced-price lunches will eat a healthy school breakfast.

2009-2010 Action Plan

• Increase the number of students eating school breakfast and teach them how important it is by engaging schools, education stakeholders, PTAs, the media, and other community organizations in our “School Breakfast, That’s What’s Up” Campaign.
• Implement breakfast-in-the-classroom (or similar models) in 10 additional schools by school year 2009-10 and an additional 15 by school year 2010-11.
• Increase funding base for school breakfast improvements by working with schools to improve the school meal application collection process.
• Ensure that all students who are homeless or living in households that receive SNAP (food stamps) or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families are automatically enrolled in free school meals.
• Help charter schools buy healthier foods through collective purchasing.
• Promote the D.C. Local Wellness Policies as a way to simultaneously increase participation in school breakfast and improve overall student health and nutrition.

Measures of Success

• Increased percentage of low-income students receiving free and reduced-price lunches who get free school breakfast.