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April 05, 2011

Comments

Pre-School Parent

I really understand the benefit of this program for children who do not receive a healthy breakfast at home, for whatever reason.

However, what about the kids who do? Won't this encourage them to eat two breakfasts? Or discourage parents who can provide a good breakfast from doing so? And why can't the program be offered before class time? Even losing 10 minutes from a laughably short day seems like a problem to me.

Mark

Where we completely agree is that the school day is too short. We need to (and will) work to add time to the day in CPS. Too many programs are getting squeezed - PE, recess, art, lunch time... the short day is not just a concern of the breakfast program, it's about having enough time to support a healthy educational environment. We need more classroom time.

As for eating additional breakfasts or discouraging food at home, we just haven't seen that as a major issue in schools that have BIC programs. Schools across the country (and in 200 CPS schools) have been implementing BIC programs and for the most part they are going well. Many schools have reported not only that it hasn't been hard to implement (after the understandable bugs are ironed out of course) and in many cases it helps keep kids in the classroom more by reducing tardiness, absenteeism, trips to the school nurse office and reducing additional trips to cafeteria for children who are hungry.

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