Saturday, December 12, 2009

California students underutilize School Breakfast Program -- latimes.com


California students underutilize School Breakfast Program -- latimes.com: "More than 1 million low-income California children who receive free or reduced-price school lunches don't get breakfast at school even though they would qualify, and about a fifth of the schools in the state don't even offer breakfast, according to two reports from the Food Research and Action Center.

California ranked 33rd in low-income student participation in the School Breakfast Program for 2008-09, the same ranking it received a year earlier. In terms of the number of schools that offer breakfast, California's ranking fell from 35th to 40th, the Washington, D.C.-based group said. In the 2008-09 school year, 8,756 schools that took part in the National School Lunch Program also offered school breakfast, compared with 8,922 schools the previous year."