Spicing Up Breakfast

A new breakfast program at Saint Paul Public Schools in Minnesota increases participation by 63%. Jean Ronnei, director of nutrition and commercial services speaks about how she expanded the program.

Last year a new breakfast in the classroom program was piloted in 39,000-student Saint Paul Public Schools in Minnesota. The program, Breakfast to Go (B2G), was so successful, Jean Ronnei, director of nutrition and commercial services, expanded it to 16 additional schools this year.

“Expanding the breakfast program was part of the district’s strategic plan because the administration recognized that breakfast eaters do better in school. We piloted B2G last year and we looked to expand it to up to 25 schools this school year. We are up to 17. We are expanding Breakfast to Go (B2G) to all schools that offer Provision II breakfast by January of next year.

One of the strategies school districts should think about in piloting a program is do it in a school that has a willing, creative and influential principal. We picked Wellstone, which has those characteristics. It also happens to be an eight-story building, and the kids have to walk up the stairs so there were a lot of challenges. Virtually all of the kids ride buses, so they come in off the bus. The kids queue up in the cafeteria, and if they happen to be early they wait to go up to the classroom.

The kids are given a biodegradable plastic bag and they go through the line and pick up an entrée and sides. We make a lot of items from scratch. We wanted to be able to serve some hot foods that are our favorites, like cheese bread, which is a whole-wheat pizza crust with a blend of cheese melted on it.

The students carry their bags up to the classroom. It’s before the start of school so the kids are eating breakfast while the teachers are doing their prep time. We have students responsible for dumping the trash and sorting. Part of this has been making sure you are flexible, so what might work in one school doesn’t necessarily work with another. Some schools have the trashcans in the hallway. In this particular school they elected to have the students take turns wheeling the trashcans from one room to the next.

We do pig food waste recycling. We’ve actually had a number of schools where we don’t have enough food that we are collecting to make it worth our while. Now the kids have had enough time to eat. They were so rushed before.

We’ve had great results. Part­icipation at B2G schools has increased 63%. Tardiness has dropped 8% and office referrals for discipline have decreased 20%.

We put an explanatory video together because it’s easier to tell the story visually than it is to talk about steps. We’ve shown it to our principals and as we do the implementation.

Pick an early adaptor—that’s a principal in a school that might have challenges, like Wellstone did with its stairs, but with a principal with the right attitude. We spent a great deal of time making sure our own staff understood the mission. From the get go, the message from the custodial staff was, we are going to figure out how to make this work. You have to have people who can accept that there are going to be some challenges. It is really important to get people to understand the benefits and not shove it down anyone’s throat.”