The Conundrum: Healthy Breakfast vs School Budget Cuts

As governments take money from public schools to bail out their budget deficits (caused by completely unrelated factors) our teachers are being asked to work with fewer resources and less time but to meet the same standards of education. More than ever these teachers need to have their students arrive at school fed and ready for learning, but the children do not. Should children get a healthy breakfast every day to nourish their brain in preparation for the mentally exhausting process of learning and interacting? YES! Are schools a good venue for providing this much needed meal? Yes! Schools provide an excellent venue as there can be some regulation as to what the children eat, they all eat at the same time, and it can be guaranteed that they are ALL offered the breakfast each day. Unfortunately, this is not so simple. Providing meal time at breakfast would have to done by the teachers. There is no school personnel to provide this service as anyone who can be cut on staff, has already been cut. This service would and does in some districts, fall on the teachers, creating an impossible situation.

We want the public schools to succeed. We hold the Public Schools accountable with No Child Left Behind. However, we continually take away funding which eliminates support staff, materials, custodial services, maintenance and upkeep of the school buildings and furniture, new books and learning materials, special programs to enrich learning, on and on and on. We continually hand out pink slips forcing teachers to look elsewhere for jobs, but later rescind these slips after teachers have been forced to look else where for permanent work. We ask the Public Schools to be the health care police, the discipline police, the academic police, the nutrition police, but we don’t give the schools any support to be all these things. When I went to public school we had a gymnasium and gym at least 2x a week, we had art and library and music. Cuts are made to bail out local government, but the money never gets put back when the times are good. We take the money away to cover the mistakes of adults who lack vision, foresight, integrity and accountability. We hold the public schools to a higher standard than we hold our own governments. We hold the teachers and children to a higher standard than we hold ourselves. We force the public schools to pay for the costly mistakes of others. And they pay and pay and pay.

Yes! The children need breakfast, and they will perform better, OF COURSE! And they need TIME to eat the breakfast, and time to have recess to run around and let off steam, they need TIME to eat lunch and they need time in phys ed to get proper exercise, and they need time in the classroom with qualified teachers and decent books and materials in structurally sound buildings with safe furniture – to LEARN! There is a huge picture that no one wants to look at. The development of our children happens on many levels requiring many approaches over a long period of time and it costs money. The development of our children does not happen in the public schools alone, it has to happen at home and in the community at large. We ALL need to care about what happens in the public schools as these children are our future.

Our country was founded on the idea that you cannot tax a population without that population being represented. The population cannot be represented if the population is not informed in a way that gives them a sound basis for choosing these leaders. We inform by providing news. If the citizens of the colonies could not read, write and communicate effectively, it was clear that the citizens would not be informed. Public Schools were born. But so long as Public school budgets are used as the well from which broken budgets re-hydrate. public school children do not stand a chance. Yes, children need to eat healthy food each day in order to learn and be productive. And NO, they very often do not get fed each day for one reason or another. If you want to make sure there is a good meal for the children, then public school breakfast is a GREAT way to go.

When, however, are we going to take the long view and do what is best for the Public Schools, our children and our future? What’s it worth to you? These children are the future contributors to your social security, the future guardians of this planet, they will be the purchasers and producers, food growers and processors – the generators of goods and services that make our economic engine run. These children will be making policy, running our legal system and governments and protecting our nation. These children are our national security.

What is it worth to you to give our future the best possible start? What is YOUR future worth to you …a decent breakfast? Do you think you can swing it? Think about it.

Bonnie Christensen
Executive Chef, BUSD
Berkeley, CA