FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                                              

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2005                                     

CONTACT:                                                                                                         

Patti Whitney-Wise, 503-757-8027

Cindy Easton, 503-255-5686

National Report Finds That Oregon Is at the Head of the

Class When It Comes to School Breakfast

More than Half of Oregon Students From Low-Income Households

Are Receiving Free or Low-Cost School Breakfasts

Portland, OR –  According to the Food Research and Action Center’s (FRAC) annual School Breakfast Scorecard, released today, Oregon is once again the top-performing state in school breakfast.  Of the low-income students receiving free or reduced-price school lunches, 56% also participate in breakfast programs.

Patti Whitney-Wise, Executive Director of the Oregon Hunger Relief Task Force (OHRTF), helps to explain why Oregon has been so successful at reaching children with the school breakfast program. “Back in 1991, the Oregon Legislature passed a bill mandating that all Oregon schools operating a federally-funded lunch program with more than 25% low-income students, also offer breakfast to students. Making breakfast available to so many children in this way has really helped us reach this level of success.”

FRAC also cites other ways that states can increase participation in their school breakfast program, including conducting outreach and connecting breakfast to local wellness policies.

Cindy Easton, Healthy Kids Learn Better School Co-Coordinator for H.B. Lee Middle School in the Reynolds School District, offers up another successful strategy that her school has used to increase breakfast participation: Breakfast in the Classroom.

H.B. Lee used to serve breakfast in their cafeteria before school every morning but many students weren’t taking advantage of it. Knowing that studies have linked a nutritious breakfast to school performance, their School Health Advisory Council developed a plan to address the problem.

As part of a new school wide plan to enhance student learning, they began offering breakfast to every student in their homeroom class. Easton says the experiment is working out very well. “Now that every student is being served breakfast every day, teachers know that their students are attending class with full stomachs, making it less likely that they will experience learning and behavior problems in class.”

Medical studies back up what Easton has seen at her school. According to Ernesto Pollitt, a UC Davis professor of pediatrics whose research focuses on the influence of breakfast on mental and physical performance, skipping breakfast diminishes students’ ability to recall and use newly acquired information, verbal fluency and control of attention.

Patti Whitney-Wise notes that, although Oregon is doing well, almost 80,000 Oregon students are still going without school breakfast. OHRTF recently received a grant from Pizza Schmizza that they will use in coordination with the department of Education Child Nutrition Unit, to promote the Breakfast in the Classroom concept to Oregon schools as a way of reaching those students.

A copy of the full report is available on-line at http://www.frac.org/pdf/2005_SBP.pdf

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