Teachers know that many of their students avoid the cafeteria during breakfast because they do not want to be labeled as “low income.” However, teachers and school staff have seen that when breakfast in the classroom is served to ALL students instead of in the lunchroom, kids don’t feel embarrassed about eating among their peers. For a high-need school district such as Kansas City, KS (KCK) Public Schools teachers and school staff know their students are hungry and with more than 11,000 kids or 26 percent of students who qualify for the federally-funded school breakfast programs, they noticed that many of them were not eating breakfast. However, thanks to a breakfast in the classroom program in partnership with the NEA Health Information Network, students at 13 KCK Public Schools can now enjoy the morning meal free of charge.
Patricia Hodison, President of the National Education Association of Kansas City, Kansas (NEA KCK) has been a champion of this program from the beginning. She has made it her mission to ensure that more students have an opportunity to enjoy the most important meal of the day and has been working with the district and NEA KCK members to make sure that the program was implemented correctly.
Over the summer Patricia helped to organize a training at Wyandotte Public Library that brought custodians, teachers, education support professionals and food service workers together to be trained on breakfast in the classroom. At the training some teachers from Wyandotte High School showed a video that their students created about the importance of breakfast. The video is awesome and really conveyed to all of the staff at the training how much students wanted and needed the BIC program.
On October 30, the KCK School District hosted a BIC event at Central Middle School to see the program in action. Unfortunately, we could not make the event but we asked Patricia to give us a recap of all the fun that we missed.
1. Can you paint a brief picture of the BIC media event at Central Middle School?
Teacher representatives at Central [Middle School] have been leaders in BIC from the start. They were excited and met with their principal to explain the program to her. So together they put together a cool presentation for the media event starting with an enthusiastic breakfast cheer by their cheerleaders as students entered that morning.
The nutritional service workers already had tubs loaded with milk and breakfast ready to go. Students came in to transport the tubs to each classroom seamlessly. As we walked down the hall teachers were greeting students and you could see kids getting settled in their rooms and picking up their breakfast to chat with classmates and their teachers.
2. What feedback did you hear from the students and school staff about the BIC program?
The kids like it. They like getting to eat breakfast and they love having time to talk to their friends and teacher in the morning. They also love being chosen to deliver the breakfasts and return extras to the cafeteria each day.
Initially, there were a few teachers that were unsure of how this would work, but they are some of the strongest advocates now. Teachers still have their time to prep for class while the kids deliver the meals. Then they get a chance to interact with students without a strict focus on achieving an instructional goal, but just learn who their students are and let their students identify with them as a person.
3. Why did NEA-KCK want to be involved in bringing the BIC program to Kansas City Kansas Public Schools?
Our members see kids come to school hungry every day or snacking on junk food to get through the morning. Many even keep a ‘snack stash’ for students in case a student needs something before lunch. We believed that BIC would ensure everyone ate a healthy meal to start the day, which was most important, but also that it would impact the classroom positively. As we reach out to connect with parents and the community we wanted to be able to tell them that we helped bring this great program to their kids.
4. Now tell us about yourself! Growing up what was your favorite breakfast food?
I always loved a bowl of cereal with milk for breakfast. Captain Crunch and Lucky Charms were my favorites. Now that I eat cereal for breakfast with my own son I have moved on to ‘grown-up’ cereals like raisin bran and cheerios, but still have a bowl of Captain Crunch occasionally!
At the BIC training in Kansas City, KS a group of Educators work together on a group activity.
Kansas City, Kansas Public Schools in Kansas City, KS is one of 10 school districts chosen to receive funding from the Walmart Foundation to increase the number of students participating in the school breakfast program. Breakfast has many benefits and students who participate in school breakfast show improved attendance, behavior, and academic performance as well as decreased tardiness.
NEA KCK and the Kansas National Education Association (KNEA) have been valued partners in the Partners for Breakfast in the Classroom program. To learn more about NEA KCK and KNEA visit http://www.knea.org/.
To learn more about the Partners for Breakfast in the Classroom visit www.breakfastintheclassroom.org.
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