Published: 12.18.2006

Push is on to give more kids free breakfast at their schools
By Jeff Commings
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
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All students who are eligible for free or reduced-price school lunches are eligible for a similar breakfast program. Many districts do not keep comprehensive records of the number of low-income students who participate, but the numbers below show how many are eligible for the breakfast program.
Amphitheater Free lunch students: 4,949 Reduced-price students: 878 Total: 5,827 Percent of total student population: 34 percent

Flowing Wells Free lunch students: 2,992 Reduced-price students: 661 Total: 3,653 Percent of total student population: 61 percent

Marana* Free lunch students: 2,478 Reduced-price students: 889 Total: 3,367 Percent of total student population: 27 percent

Sahuarita Free lunch students: 1,150 Reduced-price students: 394 Total: 1,544 Percent of total student population: 40 percent

Sunnyside** Free lunch students: 12,323 Reduced-price students: 1,806 Total: 14,129 Percent of total student population: 83 percent

Tanque Verde Free lunch students: 92 Reduced-price students: 15 Total: 107 Percent of total student population: 8 percent

Tucson Unified Free lunch students: 29,820 Reduced-price students: 5,033 Total: 34,853 Percent of total student population: 57 percent

Vail Free lunch students: 791 Reduced-price students: 540 Total: 1,331 Percent of total student population: 18 percent

Catalina Foothills does not participate in the National School Lunch Program.
*Two schools in Marana offer free breakfast to all students. **Five schools in Sunnyside offer free breakfast to all students. Source: Arizona Department of Education
Learn more
For more information about the school breakfast program:
Arizona Department of Education Web site: www.ade.az.gov/health- safety/cnp/nslp/Operating/ BreakfastInfoandFacts.asp
U.S. Department of Agriculture Web site: www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/ breakfast/

Early one morning at Los Ranchitos Elementary School, bus loads of students made a beeline for the cafeteria. Some walked slower than others, but most made a mad dash for a bowl of cereal or a plate of eggs.
One of the eager students was Leticia Salcido, a 6-year-old first-grader.
"I like the food here," she said between bites of scrambled eggs. "An apple and yogurt would be good, too."
The situation at Los Ranchitos, 2054 E. Ginter Road on Tucson's South Side, mirrors findings from a new national study touting Arizona as one of three states — with Louisiana and Hawaii — experiencing a declining number of low-income students taking advantage of the free or reduced-price breakfasts at school. In a span of two years, participation at the South Side school has dropped from 90 percent to about 54 percent.
The decline came even as the school piloted a program the study's authors want to see in more low-income schools around the country: free breakfast for all students regardless of income. Los Ranchitos officials are working to increase interest in the program and are hopeful for a resurgence.
Despite Los Ranchitos' experience, Tucson-area district officials say the percentage of low-income students eating breakfast at school has either remained steady or grown slightly.
The study does not break down participation in the school breakfast program by region or city, but officials speculate that rural districts are most likely to experience declining participation because bus routes can get longer as areas grow, so kids don't get to school in time for breakfast.
Arizona's overall drop in participation was small, but it stands out in the study by the Food and Research Action Center in Washington, D.C. In the 2004-05 school year, 40.9 percent of Arizona students eligible for free and reduced-price breakfast ate at school. The next school year, only 39.8 percent took part.
About half of Arizona's students are eligible for free and reduced-price meals, Arizona Department of Education data show.
Breakfast in Tucson
The study praises efforts of many states to get students interested in eating breakfast at school. Nationwide, participation in the federal breakfast program among low-income students grew by 3.3 percent to 7.7 million students in one year. Still, that's only half of the students who are eligible in the free and reduced-price lunch program.
Eating breakfast "is an invaluable part of their learning," said Caroline Greene, Los Ranchitos kindergarten teacher. "It contributes so much to retaining information because they learn more on a full stomach."
Thanks to new nutrition guidelines mandated by the Arizona Board of Education and a renewed interest in healthier eating for students, officials are devising new strategies to get more kids to eat breakfast at school.
Offering free breakfast for all students, as Los Ranchitos does, is a key way to increase numbers at schools with high percentages of low-income children, said Madeleine Levin, an author of the national study and a senior policy adviser for the Food and Research Action Center.
"If it's offered to all kids at no charge, it takes away the stigma that's associated with breakfast," she said. Low-income students "will see that breakfast is for everybody, not just those who can't afford it."
Two schools in the Marana Unified School District — Desert Winds and Roadrunner elementaries — are taking the breakfast program one step further by providing breakfast for every student in the classroom. The program focuses on the schools that have a "severe" number of students in the free or reduced-price lunch program, said James Remete, the district's director of food services, who brought the program to the school after seeing success in Texas and Phoenix.
"When they get off the bus and go into the classroom, breakfast is waiting for them," Remete said. Previously, he said, teachers had to buy snacks for their students; now they can use that money for school supplies.
Parental interest in the program is the key, said Principal Kathleen Bethel of Los Ranchitos. No parent at her school has criticized the program. Many of them take their kids to school just to make sure they eat breakfast, because many kids tend to skip the cafeteria for the playground.
Lidia Bustos, a parent, often sits with her three children at Los Ranchitos to make sure they eat everything offered to them. She likes the program because she often doesn't have time to put together a good breakfast.
Convenience cited
"It's convenient to have breakfast here," she said in Spanish through a translator. "Everything's real healthy."
The school breakfast program was approved by Congress in 1966, when only 80,000 kids in the United States took part. Participation now is almost 100 times that number.
But the writers of the national study hope that states will work to push the 44.6 percent participation rate nationwide to 60 percent. For that to happen this year, 2.7 million more students would have to participate.
If 60 percent of low-income students were to participate in Arizona, it would mean breakfasts for 81,000 more students.
If that goal is reached, schools would get more subsidized money. For every student who gets free breakfast, a school can get $1.51 from the federal government. For every kid buying breakfast at a reduced price, the government pays $1.21. Schools get 23 cents for every student who pays full price for breakfast.
"We contact every school district that does not participate in the program," said state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne. "We reach out to urge participation."
Officials say the money isn't what's enticing them to get more students eating breakfast, because reimbursement is fairly minuscule for each school.
"I'd love to put it in all schools because breakfast is breakfast, and it's a great way to start the day off," said Marana's Remete.
State education departments and legislators are key to making that happen, Levin said. "We should be able to get a breakfast to every kid," she said.
On StarNet: Read more education-related stories and surveys of private and charter schools around Tucson at azstarnet.com/education
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● Contact reporter Jeff Commings at 573-4191 or jcommings@azstarnet.com.
http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/printDS/160809