Do you work in a Missouri school or district with a high free-and-reduced rate student population, but you’re struggling to achieve good participation at school breakfast? The Partners for Breakfast in the Classroom can help! We are currently offering breakfast-in-the-classroom grants in ten target states, including Missouri.
Missouri ranks 14th in the country according to FRAC’s most recent School Breakfast Scorecard, reaching 59.3 free/reduced priced students at breakfast for every 100 served at lunch. While this number reflects an improvement—Missouri moved up from the 15th spot in the previous School Breakfast Scorecard—there is plenty of room for improvement.
That’s where we come in.
Why Implement Breakfast in the Classroom, Missouri?
There are a lot of great reasons to implement breakfast-in-the-classroom, and our stakeholder-driven approach has helped us customize BIC programs to solve problems such as:
- Long cafeteria lines that can’t accommodate all students before the morning bell;
- Disciplinary issues in the cafeteria/common areas where students congregate before class;
- A stigma that school breakfast is for “poor” kids;
- Late drop-offs and bus schedules prevent all students from accessing the cafeteria for breakfast.
These are just a few examples of where breakfast-in-the-classroom has become a tool for administrators and educators to address food insecurity, disciplinary issues, tardies and absences, and trips to the school nurse—and that’s on top of improved academic outcomes for students who eat school breakfast!
Did you know that fewer than half of students who eat free- and reduced-price lunches also take advantage of the School Breakfast Program? A universal, alternative delivery school breakfast—like direct delivery, Grab-n-Go, and Breakfast After the Bell—increases access to the morning meal to all students, and improves participation while also creating a calm, structured start to the instructional day.
Grant Criteria: Do You Qualify?
The Partners for BIC grant was designed to be flexible and customizable, to help high-need districts implement breakfast-in-the-classroom in one or more schools. The unique flexibility of our school breakfast grant means we can tailor the program to meet your specific needs—in one school, or in every school in your district. View our website to review our grant eligibility criteria.
Watch: Dollars & Cents of Breakfast in the Classroom
About the Partners for Breakfast in the Classroom
Funding for the Partners for Breakfast in the Classroom was made possible through a generous $7.5 million grant from the Walmart Foundation. The Partners for BIC are made up of the Food Research & Action Center (FRAC), the School Nutrition Foundation (SNF), the NEA Foundation, and the National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP) Foundation. You can learn more about our grant by visiting our website: https://live-breakfastintheclassroom.pantheonsite.io, and following us on Facebook and Twitter.
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