The Beginnings of the Breakfast Bill
If you are a superhero fan, then you know they all have an origin story. Now, this may be the nerdiest article you have ever read about breakfast, as it is not about superheroes. Instead, it is the origin story of breakfast legislation in Utah and it’s heroic journey.
Our story begins with Utah being the underdog in an annual report for nationwide breakfast participation published by the Food Research and Advocacy Center (FRAC). The report uses the data of total students who are eligible for Free and Reduced priced meals and compares how many of those students participate in breakfast. Utah is last with the lowest breakfast participation on the report, as it has been for years. This sparked the need for change. At the time, schools participating in the National School Lunch Program were not required to participate in the School Breakfast Program. This means meals were reaching more students during the day, but not in the morning to fuel them to start their day. Children in Utah clearly needed better access to breakfast to help fight food insecurity and hunger.
Thus, the Utah Breakfast Expansion Team (UBET) was born, creating a partnership with non-profit organizations, school food service directors, universities, and community outreach programs along with the Utah State Board of Education Child Nutrition Programs department. With support and grants from Share Our Strength and No Kid Hungry; advocacy to pass breakfast legislation to increase access and availability of school breakfast was well on it’s way to save the day.
After a brave fight in the Utah legislative session in March 2020, Start Smart Utah House Bill 222 was passed. Big plans laid ahead across Utah to implement alternative service styles for schools with higher free and reduced eligibility percentages and establish breakfast programs in schools. Yet, due to unexpected and unprecedented circumstances of COVID-19, plans to expand the availability of breakfast on top of the many changes to school and food service, created an overwhelming burden and stress to many schools.
Every superhero has a comeback when it seems all hope is lost. The Start Smart Utah House Bill 222 was transformed into House Bill 372 as an amendment and presented by Representative Johnson for the Utah legislative session of 2021. House Bill 372 proposed the amendment to extend the timeline of implementing breakfast programming in schools by one year. As all superheroes win in the end, so did the bill as it passed and has brought much relief and flexibility to prepare for breakfast programming in the coming year. Read the amended bill here.
Despite the original timeline being delayed, in the end, Utah has more time to prepare and advocate for alternative breakfast service styles in schools. It has created the opportunity to produce amazing resources for school food directors and stakeholders to be successful in building their programs. The origin story of breakfast in Utah legislation may be over, but there is still much to come.