NOTICE: This post is over 180 days old. This information may be outdated if you're looking for new or upcoming information.
District Ranks 4th on Annual School Breakfast Participation Scorecard
The Newburgh Enlarged City School District ranks number four on the annual School Breakfast: Making it Work in Large School Districts report released today by the Food Research & Action Center (FRAC, a national anti-hunger advocacy group). The report examines School Breakfast Pro-gram participation rates and trends in 73 of America’s largest school districts. These districts saw a net increase of 101,548 students eating school breakfast in school year 2015–2016, compared to the prior school year.
The national School Breakfast Program makes it possible for all school children in the U.S. to receive a nutritious breakfast every school day. School breakfast participation nationally has been growing, and several strategies exist to increase it further, including the use of “breakfast after the bell” models such as breakfast in the classroom, “grab and go,” and second chance breakfast. Newburgh has implemented all of these models throughout its schools, and also offers breakfast at no charge to all students in the district. These two strategies have been key drivers in Newburgh’s increased school breakfast participation rate.
In September 2016, Newburgh adopted community eligibility, which allows high-poverty school districts or schools to offer breakfast and lunch at no charge to all students. Since the district imple-mented community eligibility, participation has increased by an additional 4%.
“Our goal is to provide a healthy school breakfast to as many children as we can to ensure our students are getting the nutrition they need to learn and thrive in the classroom,” said Caitlin Lazarski, Food Services Director for the Newburgh Enlarged City School District. “School breakfast means less hunger, better health, and improved educational outcomes for our children.”
FRAC has set an ambitious, but achievable, goal of reaching 70 low-income children with school breakfast for every 100 receiving school lunch. The report finds that 93.1 low-income children in the Newburgh Enlarged City School District ate school breakfast for every 100 that received free or reduced-price school lunch during the 2015 – 2016 school year. This is well above the national aver-age of 56 low-income children eating school breakfast for every 100 who received school lunch in the 2015–2016 school year.
About School Breakfast: Making it Work in Large School Districts
This report examines School Breakfast Program participation rates and trends in 73 of America’s larg-est school districts. Two-thirds of the districts expanded their school breakfast participation from the previous school year. Read School Breakfast: Making it Work in Large School Districts in full.
ATTENTION: Are your scholars or colleagues doing something great? Please contact the district Communications Team at communications@necsd.net. We’d love to visit your class or event and/or post your pictures and recap to highlight the amazing accomplishments throughout our district!
