Superintendent Arlene Ackerman takes a bite of cafeteria pizza during a 2008 visit to Overbrook High School. A new policy means principals will be evaluated on the number of students eating breakfast at their schools. (Clem Murray / Staff / File)
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Breakfast at school now is on the principal
In a locally unprecedented move, the School District of Philadelphia will hold principals accountable for the number of students eating breakfast in their schools.
Breakfast participation will be part of the report card that rates principals each year, along with categories such as attendance and math and reading performance.
All 165,000 students in Philadelphia public schools, regardless of income, are eligible for free breakfasts. But just 54,000 ate breakfast last year, district figures show.
The new system, which begins this year, is expected to increase the number of students eating breakfast, said Jonathan Stein, a lawyer with Community Legal Services, whose efforts - along with those of Public Citizens for Children and Youth (PCCY) - helped bring about the move.
Many studies have shown that breakfast boosts student performance and health.
"This is the first accountability system for school meals in the history of the school system," Stein said. "It's very exciting."
Wayne Grasela, senior vice president of food services for the district, said he was equally pleased.
"One of our main goals is to help improve a child's ability to learn," he said. "We're working with the principals to make this happen. They're already reaching out to us."
Not everyone is happy, however.
"You're doing a disservice to principals by holding them accountable without controlling for other variables," said Michael Lerner, president of Teamsters Local 502, Commonwealth Association of School Administrators.
Should a principal be blamed for a student who ate breakfast at home and therefore doesn't eat in school, asked Lerner, who was a principal for 22 years.
"Are we going to get to forced feedings?" he continued. "I think it's wrong to assume no parent in Philadelphia is providing breakfast each day."
And, Lerner added, many children wind up not eating, thereby wasting food.
"If you know kids," he said, "they'll eat what they want and when they want."
High-poverty areas
Advocates point out that many Philadelphia children live in high-poverty areas, and thus are more likely to be without the kind of nutritious foods that mandatory breakfasts provide.
And Grasela added that "it doesn't count against principals if kids already ate, because we already assumed that in our target numbers, which are reasonable and attainable."
Not every principal will be held to the same numbers, he added, saying the targets are on a graduated scale, taking into account established lower rates of breakfast participation at certain schools.
The goal is to increase breakfast participation by 35 percent over the next two years, so that participation would be 70,000 students by 2011, Stein said.
There is a huge disparity among schools in serving breakfast, according to a School District Division of Food Services analysis.
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