Troy expands free food program

A program launched at W.F. Morrison Elementary School in Troy last year has been adopted at Troy Middle/High School and expanded to provide free breakfast and lunch to all of the district’s students.

The program, Breakfast in the Classroom, expanded average daily participation in the elementary school’s breakfast program from about 60 students in 2013-2014 to more than 170 during the last school year. The success of the elementary program prompted superintendent Dr. Jacob Francom to bring the program to the Middle/High School for the 2015-2016 school year, which has resulted in up to 155 students receiving meals every day, according to head cook Kris Newton, who manages the program for the district.

“We started the program at the elementary school in 2014-2015,” Newton said. “We increased from about 50 to 60 meals in the previous year to between 150 and 170 last year. At the high school we’re now feeding between 140 and 155 students daily.”

The program is funded by a variety of state, federal and private grants, Francom said, and has not adversely impacted the district’s budget. One of those programs is the Community Eligibility Program, which switched the Troy district to free breakfast and lunch eligibility for all students, eliminating income restrictions and the application process normally associated with free or reduced school meal programs.

“We have so many kids in need that we were able to do free breakfast and lunch throughout the district,” Francom said. “We’re getting our funding through a combination of grants and federal reimbursements. The grants are state, federal and private.”

Newton said the school’s nutrition program has actually benefitted from participating in the new programs and expanding service to all students in the district.

“We’re better off than we were before, and we’re feeding a lot more kids,” she said. “I’ve heard from a number of parents about how happy they are as well.”

In addition to the obvious nutritional advantage of ensuring every child receives two solid meals every school day, Francom said the program has also improved student behavior and performance throughout the district.

“I think we can show, in both schools, that student behaviors have decreased and they’re able to concentrate better,” he said.

At the middle/high school level, Francom said the students start their days in smaller settings with teachers and other faculty, including himself. The meals in those settings, he said, help the students and educators build stronger relationships and improve the learning environment.

“It gives teachers the opportunity to focus on relationship-building,” he said. “We all know relationsips are the most important things in student success, and this gives us the chance to focus on that. Sharing food is a strong relationship builder.”

The program, Newton said, has not created a great deal of extra work for the staff. She said the students help, the janitorial staff helps, and the teachers and cooking staff all work together to share the load. Newton and the cooking staff prepare the meals every morning and distribute them directly to the classrooms. The students eat with their teachers and peers, and then help clean up the rooms and put the trash in bags outside the classroom door for the custodial staff to pick up. Newton said the program design came from discussions with both faculty and custodial staff prior to implementation, in order to make sure everyone had a chance to weigh in on the program.

“I really had no idea where to go to start,” she said. “So I went to the janitors. They were concerned about syrup making a mess, so we decided not to use syrup ever. We had to make sure we had buy-in from everyone in order to make this work, and it has. We couldn’t succeed without teachers and staff support, they’ve been amazing, and we’ve had great support from administration and the board.”