Educational Leadership

Research;and;Action Center, 2013).

There are many reasons kids who need school breakfast aren’t getting it; the most common are stigma and timing. In many schools, breakfast is aimed primarily at students who are eligible for free- and reduced-price meals. Many kids are embarrassed at leaving their friends to sit in the cafeteria and eat with the “poor kids.” And busy mornings at home or incompatible bus schedules mean some students miss out because they can’t get to school early enough to eat breakfast before the morning bell.

The No Kid Hungry campaign has been helping communities overcome these barriers. One solution is to move school breakfast out of the cafeteria and make it part of the school day. Innovative breakfast models like Breakfast in the Classroom (which makes healthy breakfast items available to all students in classrooms at the beginning of homeroom or first period) and Grab ’n’ Go breakfasts (easy-to-eat items students pick up to munch in class) go a long way toward increasing participation.

The state of Maryland has been increasing school breakfast participation by moving school breakfast into the classroom. Analysis shows that, in Maryland, schools serving breakfast in their classrooms experienced as much as a 7. 2;percent lower rate of chronic absenteeism, and students in schools serving breakfast in their classrooms were 12. 5;percent more likely to achieve proficiency on standardized math tests (Deloitte & No Kid Hungry, 2013).

A Crucial Time: Summer In summer, children are at a higher risk of both obesity and hunger because it’s harder for them to get nutritious, nonfattening foods (National Summer Learning Association, n.d.). For too many kids, summer means no school

Source: UNICEF. Retrieved from www. globalissues.org/article/715/today-21000- children-died-around-the-world TRENDS of the TIMES

;orld;ide, some 21,000 children die from hunger every day—one child every four seconds.

breakfast and no school lunch. For families already struggling to make ends meet, the summer months can be incredibly stressful as tight budgets strain even further to provide these meals.

The good news is that free summer meals, funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, are available to children at thousands of locations across the United States—in schools, recreation centers, churches, and other sites. These programs are administered by states and run by nonprofits. Besides breakfast, lunch, or dinner, most offer academic and recreational activities that keep kids’ bodies and minds active.