Why Breakfast?
We have tapped into our School Breakfast Champions from across the country to bring you this turnkey toolkit to elevate your school breakfast program. Before we begin, let’s start at the beginning — What is School Breakfast?
The School Breakfast Program (SBP) is a program whose aim is to assist schools in providing breakfasts to children needing a healthy meal. Today 1 in 8 American children are facing hunger on a daily basis (in some regions this increases to 1 in 2 children). By prioritizing breakfast for students nationwide, students are more likely to have an improved mood, increased alertness, and lower hunger for up to four hours.
What are Common Barriers to School Breakfast?
Many teens think that eating breakfast will cause them to gain weight. This is a myth that has been corrected by multiple research studies, which you can find here. Eating a healthy breakfast is connected to having more favorable weight-related outcomes in the short and long term for students’ health.7 Nutrition education about school breakfast helps students understand these misconceptions (tips and tricks are located in our Breakfast Best Practices section).
How can My Program Overcome These Barriers?
Every school breakfast program has the power to overcome these barriers. USDA allows several provisions for school districts to break down these barriers. Universal breakfast allows you to provide breakfast free for all students by paying the difference of income eligibility levels, i.e. paid and reduced, through the food service funds.
Power Tip!
Universal Breakfast is a great plan to spend down budgets over the six-month operating allowance.
What To Know About Universal Free Breakfast
- Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) allows students to have free school meals (including lunch) while cutting down the yearly burden of checking free and reduced lunch applications.
- Similar to CEP and Universal Free Meals, there are three provisions school districts may be able to implement to decrease the money barrier for students.
- There are a handful of states that have passed bills providing universal free breakfast (and lunch) for all students in the state.
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Where’s the power in Peanuts?
