Educational Leadership

children who rely on free or reduced-price lunch during the school year, only around 3 million receive a free meal in summer (Food Research and Action Center, 2012). Nearly 85 percent of the kids in the United States who may need nutritional assistance don’t receive it for a fourth of the year. The problem is twofold. First, there’s a shortage of sites—or ways of getting children to existing sites. Second, many parents, teachers and other community leaders don’t realize the program exists.

How Teachers Can Help

Educators can play a role in making sure kids get access to healthy food in many ways. First, take the pledge to end childhood hunger in your community at www.nokidhungry.org. Principals and teachers are also in a prime position to help more children get both free breakfast in school and free summertime meals.

Districts and schools that want to create an innovative breakfast campaign in their schools can learn how by using the tool kit available at http:// bestpractices.nokidhungry.org. This kit discusses best practices for implementing breakfast in the classroom and offers tips for instructional activities that teachers can orchestrate while kids are eating their meal. There are also tools for engaging fellow teachers, school districts, custodial staff, food service employees, parents, and students in the process so that moving breakfast into the classroom is seamless and positive across the board.

Educators should encourage enrollment in local summer meals programs and ensure that parents know about these programs by distributing information at end-of-year events or by sending a fact sheet and list of local sites home with students. No Kid Hungry’s best practices website (http:// bestpractices.nokidhungry.org) provides resources; case studies of communities

who’ve created summer meal offerings, including a step-by-step process; and materials to educate both parents and the local media on summer meal programs.

Classroom teachers can be invaluable voices in the local community advocating for nutrition education and programs. Writing a letter to the editor of the local paper or a state legislator in support of hunger-relief policies can have a huge effect on ensuring that policymakers support programs to help kids.

Making sure kids get enough healthy food isn’t a handout: It’s an investment in our future. Ensuring that children have the food they need to live, learn, and play is crucial if we want to build a healthy workforce. It will take the skills and determination of everyone with strength to share—including educators—to win this battle. EL

References

Coleman-Jensen, A., Nord, M., Andrews, M., & Carlson, S. (2012). Household food security in the United States in 2011 (ERR- 141). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Agriculture. Retrieved from www.ers . usda.gov/media/884525/err141.pdf

Deloitte & No Kid Hungry Center for Best

CHRIS TIAN SCIENCE MONITOR/GETTY IMAGES

Practices. (2013). Ending childhood hunger: A social impact analysis. Washington, DC: Authors.

DeNavas-Walt, C., Proctor, B. D., & Smith, J. C. (2012). Income poverty and health insurance coverage in the United States: 2011 (U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Reports, P60-243). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Food Research and Action Center. (2012).
Hunger doesn’t take a vacation: Summer
nutrition status report 2012. Washington,
DC: Author. Retrieved from http://frac
.org/pdf/2012_summer_nutrition_report
.pdf
Food Research and Action Center. (2013).

School breakfast scorecard: School year 2011–2012. Washington, DC: Author.

National Summer Learning Association. (n.d.). Research in brief: Summertime and weight gain. Baltimore: Author.

Share Our Strength. (2012). Hunger in the classroom: Share Our Strength’s teacher report 2012. Washington, DC: Author.

U.S. Department of Agriculture. (2012). Building a healthy America: A profile of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Washington, DC: Author. Retrieved from www.fns.usda.gov/ora/MENU/published/ snap/FILES/Other/BuildingHealthy America.pdf