Improve Your MCAS Results

Without a doubt, Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) results are extremely important for all schools. Therefore, we must assist our students in every way possible to ensure they succeed on these tests. One simple way to increase MCAS scores is to promote and serve school breakfast everyday.

Research has proven that eating school breakfast improves student performance and leads to higher standardized test and math scores. The Center for Survey Research at the University of Massachusetts Boston conducted a survey last year which found that among schools with 60-79 percent of students eligible for free and reduced price meals, higher participation in the School Breakfast Program correlated with higher MCAS results for both Math and English. School breakfast has also been shown to lengthen attention spans, decrease tardiness, and reduce both discipline problems and visits to the school nurse.

Many students don’t eat breakfast at home and if they do, it may be unhealthy or eaten too early in the morning to satisfy them until lunch. Encouraging them to eat breakfast at school guarantees that all students are eating a healthy breakfast as close to testing time as possible.

If you already have a School Breakfast Program at your school, you can encourage more students to participate by:

• Allowing students to eat in their classrooms

• Promoting breakfast in school with signage and announcements
  
• Sending letters home to parents to ensure they know about school breakfast and its benefits

• Offering bagged ‘grab and go’ breakfasts

• Working with school staff to emphasize the academic benefits of eating breakfast

If your school does not have a breakfast program, consider starting one today! The Massachusetts Department of Education’s Child Nutrition Outreach Program at Project Bread provides information, ideas, and free materials to help you develop and promote the School Breakfast Program all year long. Please call us at (617) 723-5000 or email us at cnop@projectbread.org for more information.

Preparing for the Summer Food Service Program 2007

With summer coming soon, have you prepared your summer programs and feeding sites for ultimate success? Have you sought out solutions to make this year’s program even better than last year or networked with others who run similar programs to yours? Collaborating with neighboring agencies might help increase your sites’ participation numbers, minimize duplication of efforts, and cut labor costs. Don’t forget to take advantage of these community partnership opportunities!

In addition to partnering with other organizations, are you doing everything possible to attract and keep program participants? You could use incentives to keep children intrigued and create random raffles throughout your program so that kids will have to show up everyday for a chance to win! Also, consider providing awards and certificates to show your appreciation of and give recognition to the most attentive participants.

May/June 2007

Fruit anyone?

According to a recent article published in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, students are more likely to take and consume fruit as part of their meal when prompted by cafeteria staff. In this observational study, researchers assessed fruit consumption at two elementary schools in the same school district. In both schools, students could choose from a variety of fresh and canned fruits as well as several types of 100% juice. In the intervention school, cafeteria workers asked students “Would you like fruit or juice?” as they passed in front of the fruit offerings on the serving line. In the control school, students had the same fruit and juice options but did not receive a verbal prompt from the cafeteria staff. The study found that more students in the intervention school took fruit or juice than in the control school.

These results indicate that suggestive selling techniques are an effective way to promote healthy choices. For other ideas on how to encourage healthy food purchases, check out our Marketing Healthy Foods toolkit.

Schwartz, Marlene B: The influence of a verbal prompt on school lunch fruit consumption: a pilot study.
Int J of Beh Nutr and Phys Activity 2007, 4(6): http://www.ijbnpa.org/content/4/1/6.