School Breakfast Program in WI Embarassing

WKOW TV 27 ^ | March 16, 2005 | WKOW TV 27

[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.

[onja]

When I got around to it I'd eat breakfast at home. I'd usually make my own lunch.(happy to- Much better than school lunches up to high school)I'd get what clothes I liked. Didn't care to make sure it was by certain companies. I've always wondered why people will spend more money on basically the same clothes because of brand. Often a name brand shirt will be perfectly plain except for the name on front and cost a lot more.

[spunkets]

School is not a restaurant. Unless it's milk and cookies, the kids think it's commercial road kill.

[TChris]

I have worked with children's programs where some of the kids participating were from low-income homes, and the common denominator was laziness. The children frequently didn't even make it to school, because none of the "adults" (all female) in the house could drag themselves out of bed early enough to get the kids up and ready for school.

Yep. That's been my experience as well.

[gnarledmaw]

This reminds me of a show I recently saw part of on The Discovery Channel(?). There was a Russian kid narrating over footage of his average day. Every morning the kid got up and quick ate cheese sandwiches for breakfast because he had to leave the house by 4:30 or 5AM so that he could be to school early enough to recieve his mandatory bowl of buckwheat gruel for breakfast...