General Assembly Says “No” to Breakfast Mandate

Berry Friesen, Pennsylvania Hunger Action Center

A plan to bring 350 schools into the School Lunch Program this school year failed as the General Assembly wrapped up details in July related to the 2007-08 state budget.

The schools in question (250 public, 100 private) have enrollments of which at least 20 percent of students are from low-income families. The legislation in question (House Bill 908) would have required the schools to begin offering breakfast unless they could demonstrate good cause for not doing so. By mid-July, 50 schools had asked the PA Department of Education to waive the anticipated requirement; the others were getting ready to go.

But the effort failed at the very end of the process as a Senate-House Conference Committee ironed out details of the School Code Bill (HB 842), which implements the education portion of the budget. House Republican leadership and the PA School Boards Association opposed the bill because they wanted breakfast to remain entirely a local option. The PA Catholic Conference also opposed HB 842 because some private schools would find it difficult to implement a breakfast program. In their opposition to a state mandate, these groups had a crucial ally: the late hour. The final negotiations occurred on Sunday, July 15, when the budget was already more than two weeks late. Completing the School Code Bill was a crucial piece of finishing the budget itself. Rather than wrangle about breakfast and further delay the budget, the conferees agreed to cut the breakfast mandate from the bill.

The last minute defeat was a disappointment for the PA Dietetic Association, Hunger Action Center and the PA Parent-Teacher Association, as each had emphasized the benefits in school performance and weight control that are associated with breakfast.

Sue Mitchem, communications coordinator for Hunger Action, searched for a silver lining. “I’m hoping many schools go ahead and start breakfast, even without the mandate. Certainly it makes sense from an academic perspective; children perform better when they have had breakfast. From a health perspective, it also makes lots of sense. Several studies have now confirmed that children who eat breakfast are at lower risk of becoming overweight.”

Governor Ed Rendell was solidly behind the push to expand breakfast as part of his health reform initiative entitled Prescription for Pennsylvania. And the $6 million needed to implement the change won the support of the General Assembly. But the idea of requiring some schools to offer breakfast at the start of the school day—an idea implemented by about half the 50 states—was simply too radical to pass here in Pennsylvania.

Mitchem emphasized that breakfast advocacy will continue through the PA Hunger Action Center, Project PA’s Breakfast Brigade and the PA Department of Education. “This work is too important to stop.”