Austin ISD introduces Breakfast in the Classroom at Akins
Eliana Gutierrez and Thomas Cross
August 19, 2016
Akins will introduce Breakfast-in-the-Classroom beginning on the first day of the school year, offering a free morning meal to all students.
Food Service workers will deliver meals to all classrooms before each school day begins, allowing students to pick from a variety of meals. Teachers will record who eats what to make sure the school district is reimbursed by the government for the food.
Akins is the first high school in Austin ISD to offer Breakfast-in-the-Classrom after the district has introduced the program at several elementary schools and middle schools last year.
Anneliese Tanner, Nutrition & Food Service Director, said the district is rolling out the initiative because 25 percent of children in Travis County live in food insecure households. She said that the breakfasts that Austin ISD provides are often healthier than breakfast from home, providing less sugar, more fruit, more protein.
She said that school breakfast participants have healthier body weight and BMI, healthier overall diets and are more likely to make healthier choices.
