Breakfasts are delivered to classrooms in the morning via rolling carts and organized coolers to keep the system smooth and organized. Photo by Keelin Everly-Lang / the Mirror.

Breakfasts are delivered to classrooms in the morning via rolling carts and organized coolers to keep the system smooth and organized. Photo by Keelin Everly-Lang / the Mirror.

Breakfast in the Classroom program shines in Federal Way | Photos

United Way of King County presents award to Federal Way Public Schools for fighting student hunger

United Way of King County (UWKC) presented its first “Closing the Hunger Gap” award to Federal Way Public Schools (FWPS) on Jan. 17.

The award is for the Federal Way district’s work implementing Breakfast in the Classroom (BIC) with a pilot at Rainier View Elementary during 2023-2024 school year and at six additional locations this year.

At the award presentation, several speakers shared information about the BIC program and provided a tour to see it in action. FWPS Superintendent Dani Pfeiffer, School Board Directors Luckisha Phillips and Trudy Davis were present, as well as two special guests from Seattle.

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The BIC program makes what might seem like a simple change – serving breakfast in classrooms at the beginning of the day instead of in the lunchroom before school.

The change has resulted in measurable improvements in many different areas for both scholars and teachers, leaders shared during the award presentation.

The “hunger gap” referred to in the award can be measured in the increase in the number of students who qualify for free and reduced lunch that are now actually accessing breakfast. Before BIC, over half of those students skipped breakfast. Now the number of students accessing free breakfast matches the number of students who qualify for the program, literally “closing the gap.”

The change was made possible by a partnership between United Way of King County and Federal Way Public Schools with support from No Kid Hungry and the state Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI).

To access breakfast before school in the past, students had to be dropped off extra early, leave behind friends who might be playing outside, go into a loud and sometimes overwhelming environment, then wait in a long line.

“There was a lot of power struggles over food, which is not a great way to start a kid’s day,” Lake Grove Elementary Principal Amanda Wilde said. “No adult wants to tell a kid ‘you’ve got to throw your food away now, because we have to move on,’” she added, explaining that the quick turnaround time meant kids might not even get the chance to finish their food.

Before BIC, “there was a lot of butting of heads right in the morning. Now – that doesn’t happen,” Wilde said.

When students can access breakfast in the classroom, they instead get to take their time eating, don’t have to wait in line or worry about having to get to class extra early.

Food is wheeled to classrooms in coolers on trollies that are delivered by student leaders. When the meal is done, shelf-stable extras are placed on a sharing table in the classroom for students to access as they need to and trash is placed in special trash cans in the hallway.

Students then help with cleanup, spraying down their desks with water then continuing on with their day.

At Lake Grove, elementary students start their day with their social, emotional learning material. Adding breakfast has felt like a natural fit, Alisha Barlow explained. She is the executive director of Nutrition Services and said that “You’re starting your day in this calm environment where you get to share a meal together,” and at the same time you’re learning about topics like “taking deep breaths, and what to do when you’re overwhelmed and things like that, which are a very natural conversation to have over a shared meal,” Barlow said. The data also shows that teachers have seen an “increase in scholar management, specifically managing emotions.”

So far they’ve seen an 8% increase in sense of belonging, 5% increase in teacher student relationships, a 6% increase in managing emotions and 75% of teachers reported a calmer start to the day. This data is also preliminary, as they have completed one full pilot of the program last year and will find out more after they learn more from the six schools that added it this year.

Nurses have also reported fewer students coming to ask for snacks or reporting headaches and stomach pains that are common symptoms of hunger.

Special guests included a representative from the City of Seattle and a member of the Seattle Public School Board.

Seattle School Board Director Liza Rankin told the Mirror that she’s interested in seeing how the program could work in Seattle. Although it’s much bigger and overall has lower rates of students with free and reduced lunch, there are definitely schools with high numbers of low income students that could benefit.

The concept just makes sense as a positive for scholar learning in general, Rankin said. With two children of her own in middle and high school, she said she knows firsthand that “mornings are tough, you know, best case scenario, you’re a little crabby. Worst case scenario, you can’t, focus at all on anything else other than being hungry, so why not start their day a little more positive?”

Rankin added that she really likes the idea of a gentler start to the day and having that transition built into the school day. It also shows them that they are important and that it’s important for them to start their day in a positive way, she said.

Even as adults, she said this strategy even mimics the way that many adults start their workday as well. “You’re probably getting some coffee checking in with their colleagues,” she described.

Getting teachers on board

The Federal Way School District is not the first to implement the program in Washington state. That started with a few schools in Auburn and Tukwila, according to Sara Seelmeyer of UWKC. She is the associate director of Ending Hunger and said those schools were early leaders of the program.

Federal Way’s implementation has stood out in other ways though, Seelmeyer told the Mirror.

“A lot of the time districts wait for schools to opt into the program. In Federal Way we’ve seen a lot of leadership as a district, saying we stand for this and leading on it,” Seelmeyer said. “It’s really incredible and makes them unique.”

Wilde said her team was resistant to the idea at first and had some concerns.

“My staff had a lot of technical questions about exactly how would this look,” Wilde said, adding that they asked questions like “what will it smell like? How sticky are things going to get, and how will all of this work? We have stairs. How are we going to get dollies up? How are we going to get dollies down?”

Wilde said that Barlow invited teachers at Lake Grove to go visit a school that was already doing it.

“They went and instantly saw how many small things were thought of that then didn’t become big things later on,” Wilde said.

As one example, “Teachers were panicked about syrup, and right away, syrup was taken off the menu. So there isn’t syrup, which is amazing, and that made our teachers feel heard.” Another example was planning ahead and giving all of the teachers an enzyme cleaner, so “if there is a spill, which happens very rarely, they already know what to do to get a spot cleaner on it so that it’s not smelling like milk.”

BIC in action

Visiting the classrooms in person, guests to Lake Grove Elementary saw students that were a little overwhelmed by suddenly having a cluster of strange adults in their classroom, but that overall were calm and relaxed as they ate and started their day.

Tours were led by student leaders. One shared that since they started the program, he’s seen “less fights and the classroom is more calm,” and another shared that he was happy to “not have to wait in line anymore”.

FWPS has also implemented other programs at some middle and high schools including one called Second Chance where students can grab breakfast between first and second periods. These breakfasts are placed in carts throughout the school, providing easier access than having to travel all the way to the cafeteria during a short passing period.


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Students enjoy breakfast in the classroom as they start their day at Lake Grove Elementary School on Jan. 17. Photo by Keelin Everly-Lang / the Mirror.

Students enjoy breakfast in the classroom as they start their day at Lake Grove Elementary School on Jan. 17. Photo by Keelin Everly-Lang / the Mirror.

Photo by Keelin Everly-Lang / the Mirror
Students eat breakfast in the classroom at Lake Grove Elementary School on Jan. 17 as part of a program that launched this year.

Photo by Keelin Everly-Lang / the Mirror Students eat breakfast in the classroom at Lake Grove Elementary School on Jan. 17 as part of a program that launched this year.

Photo by Keelin Everly-Lang / the Mirror
Youth ambassadors from Lake Grove Elementary School met guests visiting for the Closing the Gap Award before leading a tour to show the program in action.

Photo by Keelin Everly-Lang / the Mirror Youth ambassadors from Lake Grove Elementary School met guests visiting for the Closing the Gap Award before leading a tour to show the program in action.

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