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At MPS, breakfast is now served---for free At 27 schools, every student will get a meal Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Posted Oct. 15, 2006 By Erin Richards Breakfast will be the most important meal of the day today for 27 Milwaukee Public Schools as a new program makes the meal free for all students in those schools, regardless of income. Nationally, Wisconsin ranks last in providing low- income children with school breakfasts. After a pilot study last year in several MPS schools, organizers said benefits from this larger experiment could range from increasing student performance and lowering behavioral problems in the classroom to increasing the district's eligibility for federal and state aid. Last year districtwide, "we were feeding approximately 16,000 students breakfast each day," said Kymm Mutch, food nutrition services administrator for MPS. The district is "well on its way to increasing that significantly" with the 27 schools where students will receive a boxed breakfast, which includes cereal, milk, juice and a snack such as Goldfish or graham crackers, she added. A big difference between this program and the one continuing in other MPS schools is that breakfast will be served in the classroom. By rolling food carts into the classroom rather than expecting children to eat before school, Mutch said, participation in the breakfast program increased and tardiness to class declined at schools in the pilot program. "Teachers were reporting that their kids would settle down and be ready to work more quickly," Mutch said. "They also noted decreases in the number of behavioral problems and visits to the school nurse - kids don't often realize their headaches and stomachaches are from hunger." Carver Academy of Mathematics and Sciences had the pilot program last year, and Principal Floyd Williams Jr. noted the benefits. "We don't have any raw statistics, but what we saw overall was that the staff enjoyed having breakfast in the classroom, and that they were able to build a community within the classroom through a family-style meal," Williams said. But students aren't the only ones who can benefit from a nutritious breakfast. Some federal and state aid to school districts is determined by the number of students eligible for free- or reduced-priced lunches. While trying to get enough applications to start the program, MPS found thousands of children who were eligible for aid but had not applied for it. "We've got about 9,000 more students approved" for free- or reduced-price lunches as compared with last year, Mutch said. "That's almost 10 percent of the student population." To qualify for the free breakfast program, schools were required to have 95% of meal applications returned, even from parents who would not otherwise qualify for meal discounts. Of the 27 schools participating, 26 are elementary schools. Mutch doesn't know how long the $1 million that the district allocated for the free breakfast program this year will last. She's waiting to announce 13 other schools that also have qualified because of those concerns. "Normally, if a student was 'reduced-price,' they would have paid 30 cents for breakfast," Mutch said. "A 'paid student' would have paid 75 cents. I'm not getting that revenue anymore with the. . . free program, and the million dollars from the district is to cover that gap, but we also need more equipment to store the extra food we're bringing in." Dozens of milk coolers get expensive, she added, and there's the problem of supplying extra labor to get food to the classroom. "The program isn't without controversy," said Jon Janowski of the Hunger Task Force. The group has been doing research for the free meal program. "There are definitely some folks who think that moving breakfast into the classroom is taking away instructional time, and then you have to figure out who's going to clean up the mess in the classroom." Whether the district chooses to fund a free breakfast program next year hinges on what research Hunger Task Force can provide to the School Board in February that shows a connection between breakfast and learning. "The very best case would be that we could add more schools each year to the point that we could potentially make this available districtwide," Mutch said. "That's a far-reaching goal; we have to be able to prove this pilot year that we can make it work." |
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 (414) 777-0483Hunger Task Force, Inc. | 201 S. Hawley Court Milwaukee, WI 53214 | Fax: (414) 777-0480 |
Hunger Task Force is a private, non-profit community organization that exists to prevent and alleviate hunger. |