Major Factors Inhibit Expansion of the School Breakfast Program

The school breakfast program has not grown as quickly as Congress anticipated. Expansion has been hampered by: local attitudes toward the program and perceptions of local needs and responsibilities; program costs that exceed maximum federal reimbursement; low participation, especially among teenagers; operating problems; and insufficient and/or misdirected promotion efforts. Legislation which was proposed requiring schools to provide breakfast programs if 50 percent of their students were eligible for free or reduced-price meals was rejected. Instead, Congress reaffirmed its position that programs should be made available in all schools where needed to provide adequate nutrition to students. Expansion of the program has been impeded by local opinions such as: the contention that a good breakfast is a family, not a school, responsibility; belief that the school's primary function, education, is weakened by the burden of the administration of such auxilliary functions; and the view held by many people that the program is primarily for children of low-income families and is not needed when a small proportion of such children are in a school. Low participation in the program raises questions about the need for the program, and may raise program costs. Present nutritional information systems are not adequate for deciding whether students are nutritionally needy. Financial losses seriously inhibit program growth as do various operational problems concerning bus and class schedules, food preparation and serving facilities, and supervision. The public information program for making the schools and public more aware of the breakfast program has been ineffective.

A federal mandate for school breakfast programs would be inappropriate. Although the School Breakfast Program is supposed to be targeted to the nutritionally needy, no data or criteria have been developed to determine which children would be affected. When operating costs are a barrier to growth of the program, the problem is not as readily solvable as some other operating problems. Participation in ongoing breakfast programs is low in most cases, even where sizeable numbers of students are from low-income families. The federal role should be one of ensuring that parents and school officials are made aware of the program, its goals, and the degree of support the federal government offers. It is important to ensure that the local community has a voice in the decision of whether to provide a breakfast program or not. Congress has emphasized the need for better public information about the program, but it is too early to tell if the agency's response will be effective.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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