OHIO SCHOOLS Effort seeks to break hunger cycle

A hope is that more breakfasts will reduce absence and increase test scores.
By JoANNE VIVIANO
VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Every day in Ohio, nearly 500,000 children are at risk of going to bed hungry. That's one of every six children.
These youngsters live with what the Ohio Children's Hunger Alliance calls "food insecurity." Besides falling asleep with empty stomachs, they might awaken hungry and go to school without breakfast.
The alliance, buoyed by $1 million in Ohio Department of Education funds per year, has been handed the task of expanding child nutrition programs in Ohio schools and communities over the next two years.
A goal is to work at the grass-roots level to increase by 60,000 the number of children served through federal child nutrition programs, bringing $6 million in federal dollars into the state each year to fund 5 million additional meals.
"The Meal Connection" initiative aims to push the breakfast program by providing local districts with ideas and working with them to help, said Charles T. Kozlesky, senior vice president of community engagement to the alliance's executive team.
"Kids who eat well learn," Kozlesky said. "If they can't eat, they can't learn."
"If we can break the hunger cycle, we can get kids to learn."
Kozlesky was in Youngstown last month to meet with members of the Youngstown city schools administrative team.
"Youngstown seems to be doing a good job working with disadvantaged children. I really feel their hearts are in the right place," he said.
Widespread situation
He said he will also visit other large urban communities and southeast Ohio areas, but he added that children in need are everywhere -- in urban, suburban and rural areas.
Any building with a child poverty rate of 30 percent or higher must offer breakfast, Kozlesky said. Of all the districts in Ohio, in only 20, less than 2 percent of pupils live in poverty.
"Think of our hectic schedules," he added. "Most two-parent families are working. Sometimes making breakfast is hard; sometimes you oversleep; sometimes it's just hectic. Sometimes you eat what you can grab. A lot of homes don't have a lot to grab.
"Many parents are not aware that breakfast is an option in school. ... In Youngstown, everyone can eat."
Kozlesky is the former associate director of federal student programs at the Ohio Department of Education. He began his career as an elementary school teacher.
He remembers mornings when one of his pupils might complain of not feeling well. When he asked about breakfast, the child would say that breakfast was potato chips. He'd reach in a drawer and give the child an apple.
"This program is targeting that," he said, "so we can improve attendance, and kids who eat well, make less trips to the office, less discipline referrals."
He said Kent Elementary School in Columbus saw test scores and attendance rates go up when they began partnering with various agencies that offered incentives to pupils and teachers who increased participation in breakfast programs.
Classrooms charted progress with some serving breakfast to more than 90 percent of pupils.
Increasing breakfast does more than benefit the individual child. Kozlesky said there will be a ripple effect when $6 million in federal dollars comes into the state.
The economic spin-off, estimated at $1 federal dollar leading to $2 local dollars, will create jobs, he explained.