Breakfast is served
Posted on September 26, 2014 by Erika Salazar in News
Erika Salazar
Editor-In-Chief
Breakfast in the Classroom, a district-wide initiative that aims to offer morning meals to those students who do not eat one on a regular basis, will be implemented on Oct. 17.
According to an article posted on the NBC News website, LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy said that not every pupil can afford a healthy breakfast, so a program like Breakfast in the Classroom is necessary.
The goal of this program is to provide every pupil with a nutritious breakfast. Samuel Dovlatian, assistant principal, said that Breakfast in the Classroom will allow “all students to eat in the morning, being the most important meal of the day.”
According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), “eating breakfast can help [improve] math,reading, and standardized test scores.” The USDA also said that it “helps students pay better attention in class, perform problem-solving tasks, and improves memory.”
The cafeteria will be ready with the breakfast prior to the 15 minutes of eating time. The teachers are responsible for assigning a delivery team (which will pick up the food from the cafeteria) and a clean-up team, as well as checking off the names of students who ate the breakfast on their rosters. Afterwards, the teacher will dispose of trash in designated trash cans that will be placed in the hallways. This all must be done within the 15 minute time range and teachers must make sure they keep their classrooms clean.
Students who do not want to eat breakfast in the classroom are not forced to do so; it is optional. The food that is not eaten will be given to the Parent Center, as long as it is not opened, according to Dovlatian.
This was originally designed to occur during advisory, but since the schedule now only has six periods without an advisory, time must be taken from first period. According to an article posted on the NBC News website, United Teachers Los Angeles, the teachers’ union, alleges that although this is a good-intentioned initiative, it deducts a substantial amount of time from valuable instruction time. School Based Management Committee on Monday approved taking 10 minutes from period two and adding them to period one.
Some teachers agree with the ambition to provide every student with breakfast. “I’m okay with it, it’s a good change,” said Jonathan Lee, TCA social studies teacher. Yet many instructors worry about keeping their classrooms clean like Boi Hien, SAS English teacher, who said she already has “cockroaches the size of buses” in her room.
The implementation of Breakfast in the Classroom means that food will no longer be served during nutrition, but the hash house will still sell snacks. Students will still have a 15-minute break, according to Dovlatian.
Despite the possible elimination of food distribution during Nutrition, it will not affect current cafeteria staffing. “They will be busier than ever because they have to prepare meals for every single student in the school,” Dovlatian said.
