school breakfast

The Lunch Monitor: An Incomplete and Ongoing Guide to Farm to School Policy

There’s a lot going on at the state and national level when it comes to Farm to School policies. So much so that it can be overwhelming and confusing when you’re trying to sort out what’s happening, when it’s happening, and what the impact could be. The Food Connects team wants to invite you along as we follow the latest news and encourage our lawmakers to take action.

We plan to stay up-to-date on important legislation affecting Farm to School programming. We’ll also do the work of figuring out its impact, who’s supporting it, its stage in the legislative process, and why we think it’s important. We’d love to hear from you! Share with us the effect one of these bills would have on you and your community or let us know about something important we may have missed.

Your local legislator would love to hear from you too. We’ll be sure to include contact info with each of our updates. It’s important to remind our representatives that the work they’re doing is important and that their constituents care about these issues.

First up, we’re taking a look at the Universal School Meals Bill that has recently been introduced into the Vermont legislature.  

Universal School Meals Bill (Vermont) | S.223 and H.812

What it does

  1. Requires all public schools in Vermont to serve breakfast and lunch to all students at no cost to the student or their family.

  2. Reallocates school meals as an education expense to be included with the rest of the school budget. Schools would be required to fund the portion of school meals not reimbursed through federal funds or other revenue sources.

  3. Maximizes federal reimbursement for meals at all schools through existing programs.

  4. Defines the time spent by students eating school meals during class as instructional time.

  5. Provides a five-year transition period and funding to help schools make the move to universal meals.

  6. Provides an additional full-time position in the Child Nutrition Programs at the Vermont Agency of Education.

Why we think it’s important

We see the positive impact Universal Meals makes in our region. The Brattleboro Town School and the Windham Central Supervisory Union both offer free meals to their students. Both districts have seen dramatic increases in meal participation after implementation. This means more students have a reliable source of healthy, nutritious food and the Food Service Programs have more money through federal and state reimbursements to further improve the quality of their food. This is a virtuous cycle that we’d be excited to see expanded to all districts throughout the state. 

Who supports it

In the Vermont House of Representatives, there are 27 co-sponsors of the bill, including Representatives Mollie Burke and Emilie Kornheiser from Brattleboro. The Vermont Senate version of the bill has four co-sponsors. Currently, the bill doesn’t have any co-sponsors from southern Vermont. Reach out to your state senator and encourage them to join this bill! 

Current status

Both the House and Senate versions of the bill are currently in committee (sub-groups of the House and Senate that focus on specific areas of governance, like education, health care, and transportation). The Senate Committee on Education and the House Committee on Education are both currently discussing the bill. Most recently, the House Committee on Education met to discuss the bill on February 5th. 

Interested in more?

Our friends over at Hunger Free VT are leading the charge. They’ve created a website specifically for the Universal Meals bill. They’ve also made a factsheet with more detailed info on what the bill proposes. 

Want to talk with your local representative? Easily look up your local Senators and Representatives here!

Celebrating National School Breakfast Week with Senator Becca Balint

Food Connects celebrated National School Breakfast Week during the first week of March by inviting Vermont State Senator Becca Balint to join Food Connects’ Farm to School Team, Sheila Humphreys and Kate Venne, for breakfast with Allegra Carignan’s Kindergarten class at Green Street School.  

Humphreys and Venne met Senator Balint at the school at 8:00 am, just as students were finding their way into classrooms to join their classmates for breakfast. Green Street School serves Breakfast After the Bell in all classrooms, and breakfast participation at Green Street is the highest of all the schools in Windham County, with a whopping 89% of students participating!

As the special guests entered the classroom, they were greeted warmly by Ms. Carignan and her curious students. At Green Street School, breakfast is served in classrooms at the start of each day. The Food Connects team and Senator Becca Balint sat down to a meal of freshly baked blueberry muffins, cheese sticks, and fruit juice with a group of very sweet 5-year-olds.

Over breakfast, students reported that their favorite breakfast at school is bagels, except for the one student at the table who usually eats breakfast at home, and his favorite breakfast is Lucky Charms. Other commonly served breakfast items include hard-boiled eggs, fresh toast, cereal, and scrambled eggs. The students chatted about their pets while Ms. Carignan circulated around the room greeting everyone and collecting their lunch orders. As the group finished breakfast, they joined their classmates on the rug to participate in the morning meeting and sing a song to start their day.

IMG_2271.jpg

After breakfast, Humphreys and Venne retired to the school library to talk with Senator Balint about the importance of school breakfast and other school meals. School breakfast, and particularly Breakfast After the Bell and Universal Meals, are a huge benefit to children in the Brattleboro community. When students are able to start their day with a nourishing breakfast that is available in the classroom to every student and doesn’t require a child to have to choose between eating breakfast at school in the morning or playing on the playground at the start of the day, more children eat breakfast which means improved behavior, improvements in school climate, more students who start the day ready to learn, and a reduction in nurse visits. In addition, Brattleboro Town Schools have Universal Meals, which is an enormous help to children in Brattleboro because it eliminates stigma and makes nourishing meals accessible to all students. Additionally, increased participation in school meal programs leads to increased financial viability, which ultimately results in improved food quality—commonly referred to as the Virtuous Cycle of School Meals!  

Have you eaten breakfast or lunch at a school lately? Food Connects and the Brattleboro Town Schools meal program encourages you to try it! In fact, Chef Ali West and Humphreys went to Montpelier a couple of weeks ago for School Nutrition Day at the State House and invited all of the legislators from WSESU to have breakfast or lunch in a school in their district. If you’d like to try a meal at a local school, just be sure to call ahead and let them know you’re coming!

Breakfast at Elm Hill Elementary

I arrived at Elm Hill School in Springfield, VT early on Wednesday morning. Children and families were beginning to trickle inside, some headed to early morning recess, and others headed to the cafeteria for breakfast. My mission? Learn more about the school’s efforts to increase food access by moving breakfast after the bell!

12112330_1730014990560089_1675104968434976491_n.png

Elm Hill hosts children from kindergarten through second grade, after which time they head across town to Union Street School for grades three through five. Elm Hill sits at what appears to be the top of Springfield, overlooking the city. The building is full of light and adorned with colorful student art. Principal Dr. Christine Pereira and her staff greet students with a warm welcome as they arrive for the day.

This year, the school has implemented new strategies to support positive student behavior. Classrooms have adopted the practice of being “responsive,” working with students to create and uphold classroom expectations throughout the day. Another aspect of this new programming has been to increase the time period during which students can get breakfast in the morning.

In the past, students chose between recess and breakfast before the start of the school day. When you’re 6 years old, you may deem playing with your friends more important than having breakfast. Fair enough. But, as we know, breakfast is the most important meal of the day. A student who hasn’t eaten is much more likely to be distracted or distracting to their peers. Christine and her staff understand breakfast to be an essential part of their students’ ability to focus, participate and learn. Christine emphasized, “I didn’t want there to be a barrier for my students to access food.”

So, this school year, breakfast has been extended into the first part of the school day. Teachers may choose to send students to the cafeteria for breakfast or host the meal in the classroom as they give announcements and begin the day. In this way, teachers are able to make the new practice work for their classroom. Christine mentioned that while there was some initial hesitation based on previous challenges with breakfast after the bell, the school is now really embracing the new system. More students are participating in breakfast, and students are connecting with each other in new ways.

My visit finished with a tour of the school, including the cafeteria, which was full of light, hanging plants, and happy students. The food program is managed by Anna Tewksbury, of Cafe Services, with two additional full-time staff supporting her. Kids selected from a variety of breakfast options—including scrambled eggs, muffins, fruit, orange juice, and milk. Many students were eating together at round tables, while others trekked back to the classroom with full trays.

While we can’t necessarily attribute it to changes in breakfast programming, student behavior has generally improved this school year. It’s likely that increased access to breakfast has contributed to that in some way. Elm Hill staff has been proactive in their efforts to support student success and their efforts are paying off.

On my way out of town, I happened to run into a few Elm Hill parents at a coffee shop and we got to talking about school breakfast. They expressed support and gratitude for the extended breakfast period this school year, noting that it “feels much more inclusive!” This program helps to relieve the stress that busy parents feel in the morning and promotes community building within the school. In Springfield, food service has embraced these changes and we hope to see this type of programming continue to expand throughout the district.

By: Kate Venne, Farm to School Manager