Stakeholder Buy-In

As with any program, you want to have the right people in the room to be successful. Power up your team for school breakfast by identifying stakeholders that have an invested interest in health and learning. For many schools (and school districts), this list may look a bit differently. Do not be afraid to survey your school environment to find the right people to be at the table.

When thinking about your school breakfast team, consider the following:

Who motivates others?
How does the school accomplish projects?
What are the priorities of the school, school district, and/or community?

These questions will help you answer the motivating factor that can fuel your school breakfast program. We will discuss stakeholder examples and why they should be included.

Stakeholders to Consider

Students are the reason school nutrition staff work day in and day out. Our meals are created for their preference - so who better to be at the table than students. Of course we want students’ input on what to include on the menus, but their perspective and input is more valuable when they own a part of the project.

Administration support is needed to make sure you have a successful breakfast program. Early on in the developing stages, ask them for input and advice. Administration support can be reached by understanding what are their goals for the students and what experiences do they want the school (or school district) to provide students. At the administration level, you can identify local organizations to partner with as well as student groups that are looking for specific projects.

Power Tip!

If your school (or school district) desires more consistency of school breakfast during standardized testing periods throughout the school year, this is the time to inform them that school breakfast should be consistent and prominent throughout the school year. Making breakfast important for one week doesn’t impact student success as much as all year long. Use our data and research we provided at the beginning of the toolkit to make your point.

Connect the Powerful Peanut

As you speak with stakeholders about your school breakfast program, we recommend advocating on the importance of food allergy planning – not banning.
A ban on food allergens in schools is a myth as this does not decrease the likelihood of food allergy reactions.

Food allergen bans are based on the misconception that removing the allergen from the school environment will eliminate casual contact allergy reactions.
Casual contact means students that smell the food allergen or come in contact with the food allergen on their skin (think hands on a table that had a peanut butter sandwich on it two hours ago).
Based on research, students near, or exposed, to a food allergen did not cause an extreme food allergy response, including anaphylaxis.[1]