End Hunger Connecticut! released the 2018 School Breakfast Report Card showing an additional 30 schools participating in the federal school breakfast program over the past two school years .
School breakfast programs are meant to ensure that children have access to a healthy breakfast at school to promote learning readiness and healthy eating behaviors.
The school breakfast program is a federal nutrition program administered by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Connecticut State Department of Education.
Despite making school breakfast more widely available to Connecticut’s students, a February 2018 report showed that the state fell five places in national rankings for low-income student participation in school lunch and breakfast programs. Connecticut fell from 33rd to 38th place.
That research is from the Food Research and Action Center’s (FRAC) School Breakfast Scorecard and compared the 2016 – 2017 school year to the 2015 – 2016 school year.
“Although Connecticut has steadily increased the number of schools offering the federal School Breakfast Program, the state is still ranked in the bottom ten states in the nation with a ranking of 45th for the number of schools participating in School Breakfast that otherwise participate in the National School Lunch Program,” according to a prepared statement from End Hunger Connecticut.
The Connecticut School Breakfast Report Card, published September 2018, takes a close look at Connecticut’s 2015 – 2016 & 2016 – 2017 school years and how well districts provided breakfast to students.
This report compares Connecticut’s overall data to national data and takes an in depth look at in-state town by town data.
“Connecticut has continued to progress in making a nutritious school breakfast available to more students, but we have to do better. The Connecticut School Breakfast Report Card offers deeper insight into Connecticut’s school breakfast landscape. Our educational investments are critical to all our futures and school breakfast is part of that. Connecticut continues to leave millions in federal school breakfast funds on the table in Washington that could directly benefit our students’ health and academic achievement.” Shannon Yearwood, Executive Director of End Hunger Connecticut! said. “We all know breakfast is the most important meal of the day and hungry minds can’t learn on empty stomachs.”
Students who eat school breakfast are less likely to visit the school nurse and receive disciplinary referrals and more likely to have greater levels of academic achievement and classroom attendance. For these reasons and more, school breakfast is important for student success. View the whole report here or at this link: https://bit.ly/15 – 17SBP
While the 2018 School Breakfast Report Card shows the steady progress that Connecticut is making overall in providing greater access and participation in school breakfast programs, much more work can be done to ensure that more students have access to breakfast. With that in mind, End Hunger Connecticut! hopes that the School Breakfast Report Card can be used to generate conversations and strategies to improve this access.
About End Hunger Connecticut!
End Hunger Connecticut! is a statewide anti-hunger and food security organization, with headquarters in Hartford.
