Attention, Ohio schools—the Ohio School Breakfast Challenge has been issued! Win recognition for your school or district by demonstrating your collaborative efforts to create, enhance, or expand your School Breakfast Program.
Did you know only 36.3 percent of Ohio teens report eating breakfast every day? When it comes to improving school breakfast participation, breakfast-in-the-classroom is a proven strategy. Common barriers to implementing breakfast in the classroom include a lack of understanding about the program among stakeholders, as well as funding and equipment challenges. However there are significant barriers to increasing school breakfast participation overall, including:
- Transportation/school start times
- Stigma
- Logistics (long lines, long walk to the cafeteria)
- Lack of awareness of the program among students/parents
Moving breakfast from the cafeteria to the classroom means breakfast is served after school starts, reduces stigma by offering breakfast to all students, ensures enough time to eat by eliminating long walks/lines, and strong stakeholder involvement ensures everyone—including parents and students—understand the availability and benefits of school breakfast.
How to Participate in the Ohio School Breakfast Challenge
The application period for the Ohio School Breakfast Challenge is now open, and application forms are available online. Your application must be submitted by Wednesday, January 31, 2018, and there are essay questions so get started early. Champion Award winning schools will be announced during National School Breakfast Week, March 5-8, 2018.
Learn more about the organizations supporting the Ohio School Breakfast Challenge:
- American Dairy Association
- Action for Healthy Kids Ohio
- Children’s Hunger Alliance
- Ohio Department of Education
- School Nutrition Association of Ohio
Why School Breakfast?
School breakfast makes sense—and cents! Not only do our students need fuel to think, learn, and stay attentive throughout the day, but school breakfast programs can help increase revenue for your school nutrition program. When students eat school breakfast it can help decrease visits to the school nurse, tardiness, and absences, while improving behavior, attendance, concentration, standardized test scores and more.
Suggested Breakfast Strategies
Check out the Ohio School Breakfast Challenge website for ideas and resources to help you customize your school breakfast program to the needs of your school and increase breakfast participation, including:
- Direct delivery breakfast-in-the-classroom
- Grab-n-Go delivery in high-traffic areas
- ‘Second Chance’ breakfast model
Don’t forget to visit SNF’s BIC Resource Center and download the NEA Foundation’s Best Practices Toolkit for more ideas.
Breakfast-in-the-Classroom Grants for Ohio
The Partners for Breakfast in the Classroom know that once you’ve seen breakfast-in-the-classroom in one school, you’ve seen it in one school Every school requires a customized design and implementation plan–one created with input fry7tom all stakeholders. Ohio schools are eligible to apply now for a Partners for Breakfast in the Classroom grant during our rolling application period. Contact us to learn more!