The annual national School Breakfast Scorecard released today by the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) finds that, on an average school day in 2014-2015, a record 275,300 Missouri students received breakfast at school. This finding illustrates Missouri’s increasing efforts to provide students with a healthy breakfast each day, Empower Missouri reports.
The School Breakfast Scorecard measures the success of the School Breakfast Program at the national and state levels. The FRAC report finds that 58 low-income children in Missouri ate school breakfast on an average day for every 100 that received free or reduced-price lunch during the 2014 – 2015 school year, an increase of one child per hundred from the 2013 – 2014 school year.
Nationally, 54 low-income children ate school breakfast for every 100 who also ate school lunch, an increase from the previous school year’s ratio of 53:100 and a large jump from the 43:100 ratio of a decade earlier.
Last school year Missouri ranked 15 among the states in its success at getting free breakfasts to low-income students.
“We’re glad that our schools here in Missouri are serving breakfast to a growing number of students,” Empower Missouri executive director Jeanette Mott Oxford stated. “Our challenge is to keep up the effort and reach the thousands of children still missing out on this opportunity.”
Schools in Missouri could receive an additional $12.6 million in federal funds for school breakfasts if 70 out of 100 eligible low-income students were fed, the FRAC scorecard reports.
“Teachers know that kids do better if they start the school day with a good breakfast,” Oxford notes. “It’s common sense to feed more kids.”
Empower Missouri is endorsing improvements found in other states to make the school meals more effective:
•Community Eligibility: In school districts where most students are eligible for free or reduced-price meals, the USDA allows schools to provide every student with a free breakfast and lunch. Bonus payments from the federal government make this approach appealing to schools.
•Breakfast After The Bell: One of the reason some kids don’t get a free breakfast is that their bus may not arrive at school in time for them to get to the cafeteria and eat breakfast before the start of the school day. When food is delivered to the classroom and consumed at the start of the day more children participate in the breakfast program.
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The full report, School Breakfast Scorecard, is available at www.frac.org. To measure the reach of the School Breakfast Program nationally and in the states, FRAC compares the number of schools and low-income children that participate in breakfast to those that participate in the National School Lunch Program. FRAC also sets a participation goal of reaching 70 low-income children with breakfast for every 100 receiving lunch as a way to gauge state progress and the costs of under-participation in the program.
Since 1901, our organization has had four names (including Missouri Association for Social Welfare from 1933-2014), but one mission – advocating for social justice through civic leadership, education, and research. Our Hunger Task Force addresses the public policy decisions that have caused Missouri to be second in hunger in the nation, behind only Arkansas. For more information, see www.EmpowerMissouri.org.