Schools tackle the day's most important meal

By Matthew Ryno/News Republic

In the next few days of National School Breakfast Week, Baraboo will join a growing list of schools working to increase participation in school breakfast program, seen as critical to academic success.

About 27 percent of Baraboo students take advantage of breakfasts offered in schools before classes, which have been served for 15 years.

Baraboo has been a part of a growing list of groups such as the University of Wisconsin - Extension, in recognizing that skipping breakfast can lead to behavior problems, poorer test scores, obesity and other nutritional deficiencies.

Mary Loveless, food service director, said she wants to strengthen Baraboo's commitment to breakfast even more by offering federally subsidized meals to older students this fall.

"Changing the style of breakfast we do at the high school will increase these numbers," she said. "There are a large number of kids that qualify for free or reduced (price) meals that could take advantage of it."

Baraboo High School will stop offering an a la carte style breakfast, and dish out a full tray of breakfast food once the next school year starts. The same thing was done a year ago at Jack Young Middle School and Loveless said it was successful -- passing the test of kids involved in activities before school.

About 1,017 Baraboo students qualified for a free meal this year, or were allowed to pay a fraction of the $1.25 price of breakfast at the elementary schools and middle

school. About 70 percent of those who qualified chose to participate in the program, supported by the United States Department of Agriculture.

To qualify, a family of four, for example, must make $27,560 or less in a year for a free meal. The same family, making up to $37,000 may qualify for a $.30 meal.

Like Baraboo, other school districts have zeroed in on the federally reimbursed school breakfast program as a way to increase breakfast takers. More children are becoming eligible for free and reduced-priced meals amid the U.S. recession.

Nationally, about 8.5 million children participated in school breakfast programs on an average day in the 2007-2008 academic year, according to the nonprofit Food Research and Action Center. This is less than the national school lunch program that reached 18.4 million children.

"The dramatic changes in the economy make it even more important for schools to try to break down any barriers preventing qualifying children from participating," said Rachel Cooper, a senior policy analyst with the center.

In Milwaukee Public Schools, where 77 percent of the district's 85,000 students qualify for free or reduced-price breakfasts, they are taking extreme measures and offering breakfast for free to all students in 75 of its 125 elementary schools.

Participation among all Milwaukee students increased from 11 percent when the classroom breakfasts began in 2006-2007 to about 33 percent this year.

Milwaukee schools also started offering breakfast foods in vending machines for middle school and high school students.

"Students like the community feeling of eating in the classroom, and if they have to go to a cafeteria before school to eat, many don't," said Kymm Mutch, Milwaukee's school nutrition services director.

At Baraboo High School, Loveless said breakfast foods may also be offered in vending machines this fall for the very same reason -- but the public should not expect Baraboo to follow Milwaukee's strategy of offering free breakfast to everyone any time soon.

Even though nearly 60 percent of South Elementary School students qualify for free and reduced lunches the same is not true for the rest of the district.