Compassion Fatigue

Thursday, April 21, 2011

My post about breakfast in the classroom resonated with a lot of people, but not in the way I expected. Some readers commented that they couldn't believe that parents can't feed their child before school. Here's one excerpted comment...

I don't really agree with the state feeding children all their meals. This is the responsibility of the parents. Parents can't hack it? Then these kids should be living with someone who can. -Anonymous

Thank you for adding your voice to this discussion. I don't mean to repost the comment to single the person out but it use it as an example how we all feel sometimes. I've blogged about my dad's view of the school lunch program, which is similar to this commenter's.
In our country, 46.3 million people live in poverty, the largest number in 51 years. So yeah, I feel overwhelmed too. There is so much need.

Is Hunger Affecting Your Students?

“When I started sixth grade, the other kids made fun of Brian and me because we were so skinny. . . . At lunchtime, when other kids unwrapped their sandwiches or bought hot meals . . . I told people that I had forgotten to bring my lunch. No one believed me, so I started hiding in the bathroom during lunch hour.

“When other girls came in and threw away their lunch bags in the garbage pails, I’d go retrieve them. I couldn’t get over the way kids tossed out all this perfectly good food.” – Jeanette Walls, The Glass Castle (2005)
Unfortunately, journalist and author Jeannette Walls isn’t the only American student who has struggled with severe, debilitating hunger. According to a recent national survey, 63 percent of teachers surveyed reported an increase in the number of students who regularly come to school hungry.
That number is significant. But does hunger pose any real threats to your students?

Educators Point to Student Hunger as Grave Problem

New survey focuses on the need to feed children to stem classroom problems

By Cynthia McCabe
Tuesday, December 8, 2009 -- More than 60 percent of teachers say they reach into their own pockets to provide food for their students each month, according to a new survey underscoring the damage educators see hunger doing to their students. Whether they work in rural, urban, or suburban environments, hunger is manifesting itself in illness, discipline problems, and lack of focus and engagement.
Roughly the same number say – 62 percent -- they see students enter their classroom without having had enough to eat that morning, the Share Our Strength survey found. No wonder then that more than half believe an in-classroom breakfast program is essential in public schools.

Chicago school bans some lunches brought from home

To encourage healthful eating, Chicago school doesn't allow kids to bring lunches or certain snacks from home — and some parents, and many students, aren't fans of the policy

Students at Little Village Academy often throw

away their entrees and fruit untouched. (Monica Eng/Tribune)

Fernando Dominguez cut the figure of a young revolutionary leader during a recent lunch period at his elementary school.
"Who thinks the lunch is not good enough?" the seventh-grader shouted to his lunch mates in Spanish and English.
Dozens of hands flew in the air and fellow students shouted along: "We should bring our own lunch! We should bring our own lunch! We should bring our own lunch!"
Fernando waved his hand over the crowd and asked a visiting reporter: "Do you see the situation?"

Washington State budget cut could make kids’ stomachs growl

Source: http://www.childrensalliance.org/no-kidding-blog/cut-could-make-kids’-stomachs-growl      

School meals are a critical tool in the fight against childhood hunger. For five days a week, nine or ten months out of the year, kids in low-income families can count on school meals as a source of balanced, reliable nutrition.

Federal standards ensure that growing kids who eat school meals are getting adequate amounts of calcium and protein. Hunger-free kids can concentrate on their schoolwork. Without school meals, low-income families would have to make tight food budgets stretch even further, reducing the quality and amount of food that children and parents eat every day. We are proud that Washingtonians have a long history of supporting school meal programs.
In the 2011 early action supplemental budget, the legislature cut funding for school meals by $3 million.

School food budgets are run on very tight margins. Only a few programs break even. For most districts, serving kids healthy, high quality food costs far more than school meal programs bring in, and districts are forced to cover their costs through levy funds and reserves.
If this cut is carried into the next biennium, school meal programs and kids across the state will be hurt. Schools could be forced to lay off workers and turn to more processed foods with lower labor costs. Kids may not have access to as many fresh fruits and vegetables, and much of the work to improve meal quality – by cooking with higher-cost, more nutritious foods – could be lost. In the worst cases, schools may drop lunch or breakfast programs.

We still have time to save school meal funding. Call or email your legislators. Let them know that school meals are critical to the success of children in every school in every district across Washington.

Filed in:

• 2011 legislative session
• End Childhood Hunger
• Hunger
• No Kidding: Children's Alliance Blog

In Hard Times Kids Should at Least Count on School Means (Bellingham, WA Herald)

An opinion piece in the Bellingham Herald makes the case for protecting school meals:

At a school in Whatcom County not long ago, a second-grade teacher was at her wits end about what to do with a boy who misbehaved constantly, disrupting class and disregarding her requests. It took months before she learned what the problem was: he was hungry. When he began receiving free school breakfast and lunch the behavior problems stopped.

Source: www.childrensalliance.org; http://www.childrensalliance.org/news-events/were-news-hard-times-kids-should-least-count-school-means-bellingham-herald; Posted on: Saturday, March 28, 2009 - 10:14am

Statistics from Share Our Strength: No Kid Hungry

Facts on Childhood Hunger

More than 50 million Americans struggle to put food on the table. More than 17 million of those affected are children.
Hunger impairs our children’s health in significant and long-lasting ways:

• Children who struggle with hunger are sick more often, recover more slowly, and are more likely to be hospitalized.
  
• They are more likely to experience headaches, stomachaches, colds, ear infections and fatigue.
  
• Children who face hunger are more susceptible to obesity and its harmful health consequences as children and as adults.