Elementary schools are serving more needy students

By Robert E. Lee

Buckhannon – When Upshur County administrators searched for ways to get more elementary

students to eat a nutritious breakfast, they found the answer in their high school.

As a result, elementary schools are offering two breakfast choices to students. They have the

choice of a hot breakfast, which is more traditional in the school systems, or an alternative

breakfast that mimics the grab-and-go meals.

The hot breakfast consists of omelets, pancakes, and other items. The alternative breakfast

consists of fruit, muffins, granola bars and other nutritious options. Though students aren’t

allowed to have both; they must choose one or the other.

“The children love having the choice now of either a hot breakfast or a later breakfast during the

day,” said nutritionist Cindy Nesselroade.

Upshur County modified the breakfast choices because nearly 62 percent of 4,086 students in

their district are needy and may not be getting the nutritional meals they need. The change is

working and administrators are seeing an increase in breakfast participation.

The progress the county has seen was spurred, in part, by a new West Virginia law, Feed to

Achieve. The new law mandates that schools reduce or eliminate the cost of a nutritious meal for

students.

This law is helping needy children in districts all over West Virginia by aiding in the school's

food distribution. For every meal schools feed to a student, they will receive a reimbursement

from the federal government.

Since the law was passed in 2013, Upshur County has increased the breakfast participation rate

from 39.58 percent to 42.02 percent. Due to the increase, the county is currently above West

Virginia's average breakfast participation rate of 41.23 percent.

This is the first year that all elementary schools in Upshur County will have two breakfast

options.

Not only do they include another breakfast option, but elementary schools also improved the diet

scheme for the students by adding more vegetables and fruit. For more vegetables, it costs on

average an extra nickel per meal, according to school board member Greenbrier Almond.

To help with students who aren't always hungry or come in late during the mornings, school

officials decided to serve the two breakfast options at different times. They serve the hot

breakfast right when students arrive to school and serve the alternative breakfast about an hour

later.

In at least one way, students taught administrators.

“The high school kids actually initiated an idea to have the morning bell let out a warning at the

two minute mark, reminding the students they have three minutes left to go get their food,” said

Almond.

The high school students also recommended extending the time when grab-and-go breakfasts are

offered.

"The students always preferred getting the grab-and-go meals, but having a small window to

grab food tends to make it difficult to eat," said Superintendent Roy Wager.

Before the breakfast program was modified with the alternative breakfast, most students would

eat the grab-and-go meals because it was the fastest method. Administrators came up with the

idea to have teachers volunteer handing out the food to students.

“The teachers are happy with this. It took them a little bit to get used to this new idea, but for the

most part they’re satisfied,” said Wager.

There were concerns early on whether classrooms would become dirtier, if trash would increase

and if students would be distracted from learning while eating their breakfast.

The students can bring their food to other places to eat, which is good news for teachers. They

can also bring it to the cafeteria and eat with their friends if they have enough time.

“The students will either see their friends in the cafeteria and want to eat together or they’ll just

take it back to the classroom,” said Wager.

Fortunately, the school hasn't received any complaints about this change. In fact, the community

and parents fully support this and are very excited to be feeding more children in the school

systems, according to Almond.

Administrators feel that schools are the best place to feed students who aren't getting nutritious

meals at home.

“The parents are happy because some of them don’t have enough food in their households to

feed their children properly. So having them fed in school is a relief to parents,” said Almond.

Last year Upshur County had a lot of electrical difficulties from being pounded by hurricanes. In

response, the county received a $35,000 state grant for a food freezer. This will allow them to

increase food preserving capacity and prepare food more efficiently for the students, according to

Almond.

“We had a lot of power outages, so our food went bad quite often, leaving the children hungry. It

was a tragedy,” said Almond.

With new changes occurring in Upshur County, administrators are excited to introduce the two

breakfast choices into the elementary schools. Though, not enough time has passed to evaluate if

elementary schools are seeing academic improvements; similar to the high school.

Administrators can only wait and see.

Either way, school officials are pleased that students are more enthusiastic about being there.

Endnote: Statistics from Rick Goff, executive director of the Office of Nutrition in West Virginia's Department of

Education.