Posted on 03/17/2005 12:25:18 PM PST by Diana in Wisconsin
School Breakfast Program in WI "Embarassing" 03-16-2005
For the 7th consecutive year, Wisconsin schools are dead last when it comes to the most important meal of the day. Wisconsin is 50th in the nation when it comes to the number of schools that offer breakfast programs, and the number of low-income students
It's a morning routine now for Anna Toppel and her brother Hunter. They've been eating breakfast at their school in DeForest for the past year.
"The fact that they can go to school earlier, was the number one reason why we went with it," Anna's mother, Jodi Toppel said. "Now that they have the breakfast there, it's a lot less hassles in the morning."
Convenience was the selling point for the Toppel family. For $1 each, their kids get a breakfast at school every morning. Low income families can pick up a reduced price breakfast for just 30 cents. For every breakfast served, the state then reimburses the school a dime.
Jon Janowski, director of the Hunger Task Force says schools need to do more, and the state needs to do more to give schools an incentive. The Hunger Task Force is a non-profit group out of Milwaukee that is a leader in promoting change to the state's school breakfast program. "The bottom line is -- hungry children don't learn, and there are children who go to school hungry all over the state on any given day."
Statistically, it doesn't look good for Wisconsin. According to numbers from the food research and action center, only 47% of Wisconsin schools offer school breakfast to their students -- dead last in the nation. The national average is 79%.
Janowski wants more schools to take advantage of the several federal grants available for the creation a school breakfast program. "We would argue -- this program offers so many benefits to kids, there really isn't any reason not to offer the program," Janowski said.
But even Janowski admits starting a school breakfast program is not an easy task. After the startup grant is gone -- typically after two years -- the schools then have to foot the bill themselves. Staffing alone for the breakfast program at DeForest's Middle School costs about $8,000 a year. Other schools 27 News contacted point out other hidden obstacles -- like earlier bus schedules, time for eating, and then there's the money needed for more staffing.
Governor Doyle proposed increasing the state breakfast reimbursement from 10 cents to 15 cents to help offset some of those costs. His plan would cost the state $1.3 million in the next two-year budget.
"When the need is there, I think it's pretty immoral of us not to be there doing what we can," State Representative Sondy Pope-Roberts said. "It's a pretty simple thing once it gets going."
Pope-Roberts says she supports the governor's plan to increase funding and reimbursement to schools. The problem, she says, is getting other legislators to understand the generational changes in play. "If you look at today's population in schools and it's completely different. I think the assumption is: because I send my child to school with a healthy breakfast, everyone else must. They aren't remembering those single families, maybe holding down a couple of jobs, maybe not enough money to provide a nutritious breakfast. Kids cannot go to school hungry and be expected to learn and be well behaved. It just doesn't happen."
The Hunger Task Force has teamed up with the Wisconsin Council of Churches, to lobby legislators to support an increase in funding to the state's school breakfast program. The two groups will be at the capitol tomorrow to testify before the the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee in support of the reimbursement hike.
Eleven out of the 16 school districts in Dane County offer school breakfast in at least one of their schools. Monona Grove, Wisconsin Heights, Sun Prairie, and Verona are the only districts in the county with all of their schools serving breakfast.
After she gives birth, why doesn't she just leave the child at the hospital?
Why bother with all this parenting and personal responsibility when the state will do it all for you??
These liberal pols make me sick.
Thank Goodness! I thought I was maybe nuts, or being mean to hungry kids or something! The more I think about this, the more I see:
1. It's GOTTA be a fully funded Government PROGRAM.
2. Fully STAFFED by UNION members, of course!
3. More food contracts for McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Vending Machine companies, etc.
This isn't about feeding hungry kids. It's about milking the government cow, also known as The Taxpayer!
"Our daughter just loves to jump out of bed early and make breakfast for Mommy and me."
I'm sorry. We're going to make that illegal. It sounds like child labor. Also, it deprives them of having breakfast with their peer group, which is so much more important than the adults who house them. Besides, shouldn't she be in Head Start so she can learn to watch cartoons in the morning?
I can't believe what I just read! My God, the family around breakfast is the American way. Do mothers just throw the kids out the door so she can have her quiet time? Where in the hell are the fathers? I say NO BREAKFASTS PERIOD served in schools! This is insane.
But kids score high on the SATs and we have the longest life expectancy in the nation.
Clearly, more socialism is the answer
Rant off/Sarcasm off
I've been duped again.............
Amazing.. its a hassle to put some cereal on a bowl and poor milk on it for your own KIDS!!!! I'm glad this self centered narcicist wasn't my mother... lazy [*&^#%@]!
And Heaven help you if you send your kid to school with the contraband substance in her sandwich....
PEANUT BUTTER
or your looking at hard time....
Just wait 'till the grass starts growing... I think she may be able to handle the mower if I get the electric start... ;^}
"I think she may be able to handle the mower if I get the electric start..."
OK, but only until she's strong enough to use the push mower.
That is insane.
Hell when I was growing up I never had breakfast. It had nothing to do with money, my family is very wealthy, I just wanted to sleep an extra twenty or so minutes. I almost never eat breakfast now, it's really not a big deal.
My family was low income. But, I never had school breakfasts. It was cheaper to have a bowl of cereal in the morning, rather than get up earlier to eat at school.
Why don't they just sleep there and the state can call it an orphanage!
"Hell when I was growing up I never had breakfast."
Well, according to the 'experts', kids who don't eat breakfast can't learn. You and I never ate breakfast, therefore, we should not be able to read, write, and make a living. I guess we must have messed up somewhere!
The other day I read that today's kids are facing an obesity "epidemic" which will shorten their life spans, so they can stand to skip a few meals.
Surely you jest. Are women supposed to know who fathered their child without a DNA test? What a novel idea that would be.
Yeah, everywhere I go, I see people walking around eating. Don't they ever stop? It was considered rude, especially for adults, to eat while walking around in public when I was a kid. Go home to eat. Of course, there's no one home, so why bother. Now it's like breathing. They need to do eat all the time.
But they never play. Go to a park and look at the number of kids playing baseball or anything else, for that matter. The only kids that play at parks now are the ones the day care centers dump there.
What's really embarrassing is an article about schools that misspells a key word in the headline.
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