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Dear Supporter,
Great news!
The New Jersey Departments of Education and Agriculture yesterday issued a joint memo to all New Jersey school districts urging them to serve breakfast in the classroom. The memo also instructs school districts that breakfast can count as instructional time.
This will go a long way toward overcoming the barriers that have kept New Jersey near the bottom of the pack nationwide in serving school breakfast to hungry children.
“We encourage you to think about providing students with breakfast in the classroom…That time could be considered part of instructional time and would only take about 10 minutes,” the memo said.
Read the memo.
This is a giant leap forward for New Jersey in providing leadership on school breakfast. The state currently ranks 46th nationally because only 37 percent of children eating free- or reduced-price lunch also get breakfast at school.
Education Commissioner Chris Cerf and Agriculture Secretary Douglas Fisher should be commended for providing this critical state leadership. And we’d like to thank all of you who joined ACNJ in sending a strong message to our state leaders that this should be a priority to help children succeed in school. It worked!
We invite you to join the Food For Thought School Breakfast campaign. We need advocates on the local level to petition their school board, superintendent and other school officials to serve breakfast in the classroom. If you’re interested, e-mail Reggie Dorsey at rdorsey@acnj.org.
Sincerely,
Cecilia Zalkind
Executive Director
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