FRAC Updates

Five School Districts Celebrate Breakfast in the Classroom

FRAC celebrated five major victories for a partnership that is bringing large-scale Breakfast in the Classroom initiatives to selected urban school districts across the country, with media events in Orlando, FL, Prince George’s County, MD, Memphis, TN, Dallas, TX, and Little Rock, AR.

There’s a lot to celebrate: More than 10,000 additional children are eating breakfast at school every day in the five districts, principals and teachers are thrilled with the academic improvements they are seeing due to the program, and the school districts are pledging to expand Breakfast in the Classroom beyond these initial grant-funded schools.

Funded by the Walmart Foundation, the project was run by Partners for Breakfast in the Classroom —a joint initiative of FRAC, the National Education Association Health Information Network, the National Association of Elementary School Principals Foundation, and the School Nutrition Foundation. These organizations worked together to identify school districts, garner stakeholder buy-in, and provide support every step along the way to ensure successful, sustainable Breakfast in the Classroom models.

“At every event I attended, I heard from school administrators, principals, teachers, parents, and students who are ecstatic about Breakfast in the Classroom. ‘We love it,’ is the number one most common thing you will hear them say,” said Casey Dinkin, FRAC’s project coordinator for Breakfast in the Classroom. “Principals who initially expressed hesitation about Breakfast in the Classroom when we met with them a few months back now are raving about it. These events allowed them to share their excitement and celebrate with the entire school district community, Partners for Breakfast in the Classroom, and the Walmart Foundation.”


FRAC continues to take the lead on fostering the implementation of the participation and the healthy eating components of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act – the 2010 child nutrition law.

FRAC’s “Putting the Act in Action” webinar series continues to achieve record registration. Our two most recent webinars focused on “Strategies for Success: Making the Most of the New School Water and Milk Requirements” and “Healthy Choices for School Children.” With its milk and water webinar, FRAC (with speakers from USDA, the California Endowment, and other advocacy organizations) shared information, practical models, tools and resources needed to facilitate the successful implementation of new requirements that free water must be readily available to children during lunch, and that schools must only offer milk consistent with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. “Healthy Choices for School Children” focused on the Act’s new provision that gives USDA the power to eliminate the unhealthy foods in vending machines, snack bars, “a la carte” lines in cafeterias, and other foods sold outside of the federally-reimbursed school meals.

Previous webinars in the series highlighted opportunities to expand school meal eligibility; new afterschool food provisions; improvements to the school nutrition and wellness environment; child care food changes; and other key elements. Transcripts and slides for all webinars are available on our website.

FRAC also launched a campaign to engage the anti-hunger and public health community in commentary on USDA’s proposed rules to improve nutrition standards for school lunch and breakfast (the rules are to implement the new child nutrition law and are at the public comment stage). In addition to submitting its own comments, FRAC publicized the opportunity; developed model messages and comments; and otherwise encouraged advocates and stakeholders to ensure the regulations set a path to realizing the best possible improvements in school nutrition quality.