Local School Wellness Policies

Goal 1: Every California public school offers the School Breakfast Program.
Goal 2: All California students participate in the School Breakfast Program.
Goal 3: Every school breakfast promotes health and appeals to students.

Every 5 years, Congress “reauthorizes” the Child Nutrition Programs, including the School Breakfast Program, to make program changes and budget adjustments. As part of the 2004 reauthorization, Congress now requires school districts participating in the National School Lunch Program to develop a local school wellness policy by the start of the 2006-07 school year. According to the new federal law, the policies must:

include goals for nutrition education, physical activity, and other school-based activities designed to promote student wellness in a manner that the local educational agency determines appropriate;
include nutrition guidelines for all foods available on the school campus during the school day;
provide an assurance that guidelines for school meals are not less restrictive than those set by the Secretary;
establish a plan for measuring implementation of the local wellness policy; and
involve parents, students, and representatives of the school food authority, the school board, school administrators, and the public in development of the local wellness policy.

These community dialogues are an excellent time to make sure your local schools are putting breakfast first.

Wellness Policy Requirements…School Breakfast Actions

Each of the five required components listed above is an opportunity to help your school district improve access, participation and quality of school breakfast. By getting involved as the policy is developed, you can help strengthen school breakfast so that more kids, families and schools benefit!

How to Get Involved

To get started, contact your school district and ask to speak with someone working on the school wellness policy. This might be the school food services director, the superintendent for health or a Nutrition Network coordinator. Share your interest in student health and ask to participate in the upcoming wellness policy development.

Participant Guide

Here are key questions you may want to ask during the policy development process, resources to help you understand important issues and our recommendations for action steps to take.

Each Policy Must Include…	Key Breakfast Questions			Recommended Policies

Goals for nutrition education, physical activity and other school activities that can promote student wellness.	Does every school in your district offer the School Breakfast Program? Click here for more on the academic and health benefits of breakfast. Has your district taken steps to maximize participation? Click here for fact sheets on the range of student-friendly breakfast models.			Every school offers the School Breakfast Program. Implementation of Direct Certification in the district. Implementation of Provision 2 or 3 in high-need schools. Implementation of the student-friendly breakfast option that will do the most for increasing participation.


Nutrition guidelines for all food available on campus.		Can we decrease the availability of unhealthy foods that draw kids away from eating a well-balanced meal? Chips and soda are not a good breakfast or lunch, but selling them at school reinforces that unhealthy habit. Some communities think all kids should eat the full breakfast; others think it’s OK to have healthy snacks (like fruit, yogurt and whole-grain bagels) for sale. What does your community think?		Eliminate the sale of all competitive foods during breakfast or eliminate the sale of unhealthy competitive foods during breakfast. Use gold star Healthier US standards to define “healthy.”



Assurance that the guidelines for food served as part of school lunch or breakfast are not less restrictive than federal law.		USDA standards are a good baseline, but does your school district have additional priorities? School breakfasts must include milk and meet one quarter of the RDA for key nutrients. (Click here for a summary.) However, USDA standards do not address trans fats, added sugar, sodium or fiber. There is also no requirement to serve fresh fruit (instead of, or in addition to, juice). Are these priorities for your community? How can parents and students find out about the nutrition of the meals being served?		The milk served with breakfast should be low-fat or skim. Serve fresh fruit with every breakfast. See the gold star Healthier US standards for other ideas. Provide parents and students with nutrition information on school lunch menus.



A plan to measure the implementation of the policy, including identifying at least one person to be responsible for making sure the policy is implemented.	How will parents, students and the school community track progress in improving school breakfast?			Dedicate part of one school board meeting each year to school breakfast and other nutrition issues. Require the school food service director to report on key indicators. Click here for how the Breakfast First Campaign is measuring progress.


Parents, students, school food service, school board, school administrators and the community must be involved in developing the policy.			How can we make sure the diversity of our school community is represented in the policymaking process? In addition to helping to write the policy, how can parents and students stay involved in improving breakfast nutrition?	Conduct meetings at convenient times and locations for parents and provide translation services, as needed. Develop an ongoing structure for parents and students to offer feedback on the breakfast program, such as taste-testings and community surveys.

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