|
Second Chance Breakfast (2CB) is an excellent strategy for making sure that every student has an opportunity to eat a healthy breakfast at school. 2CB is particularly effective with adolescents whose bodies often don’t want food first thing in the morning. Also, some teens may not have a homeroom where they could eat Breakfast in the Classroom.
When bus schedules don’t leave enough time for riders to eat before the bell or when students are late to school, 2CB ensures those kids have a healthy meal available at recess. When combined with Provisions 2/3, all children eat breakfast free. And with breakfast the most important health and learning meal of the day, Second Chance Breakfast is a winner for the students, their families, their teachers and the whole school.
|
|
|
|
|
How Does Second Chance Breakfast Work?
Exactly as the name suggests, 2CB is a second breakfast service during morning recess or snack break, usually sometime between 9:00 and 10:00 AM. The conventional breakfast service in the cafeteria before school starts is maintained, and meals are kept available for later in the morning. Use of student identifiers, either punched in or by means of a swipe card, ensures that each student eats only one school breakfast, either before school or during 2CB. The important thing, though, is that 2CB brings essential nutrition to many students who otherwise wouldn’t get a healthy morning meal.
What’s For Breakfast?
The meal may duplicate the menu from the earlier cafeteria breakfast served before school. Or it could be a Grab-n-Go-type meal service (see description under that heading). While many schools sell cookies and other sugary snacks during breaks and morning recess, 2CB replaces those choices with a nutritious USDA meal.
Who Benefits?
First and foremost, all students can benefit when 2CB is started. Some students are still hungry when they get to school. As mentioned above, some teenagers find it hard to at early in the morning; their bodies don’t seem ready to take in food until they have been up and moving for a while. Other students are rushed in the morning, have long commutes or eat only unhealthy food. Without a nutritious breakfast, these students are unlikely to have the energy to concentrate and learn. Moreover, if students don’t get the right breakfast in the morning, they may overeat later in the day, especially far less healthy foods. Everyone benefits from the change in the school atmosphere when all the students are nutritiously fed and ready to learn.
Where is it happening?
Second Chance Breakfast is most popular in secondary schools. Many elementary schools do well with 2CB, too. By Fall 2005, all 700 school sites in Los Angeles Unified School District will have implemented 2CB. In fact 75 percent of the LAUSD schools already serve 2CB, and the implementation seems to be going very well with substantial expansion of participation (double at many sites) and increased federal and state revenue.
|
|
|
