Expanded Breakfast Program Is Urged : Schools: Activists say the poor aren’t receiving the full benefit of the federal subsidy to help hungry students. Districts say extra costs are involved.

Hundreds of children from some of Ventura County’s poorest areas go to class hungry when school districts could feed them through a federally funded breakfast program, community workers and parents say.

Students of low-income families in Oxnard, Fillmore, Port Hueneme and Santa Paula need a free morning meal, said Jesus Lopez of the California Rural Legal Assistance office in Salinas.

Lopez is scheduled to meet in August with school administrators and nutrition directors to discuss the problem. The meetings will include representatives of El Concilio, which is a Latino advocacy group in Oxnard, and Padres Unidos, an Oxnard parent group.

Many children arrive for class with empty stomachs and are unable to concentrate because they have not eaten, Lopez said.

Part of the problem is that parents, particularly those who are migrants, may not be aware that the breakfast program is available to the schools, Lopez said.

“My goal is to inform parents of their rights to apply,” said Lopez, who has met with parents this summer to tell them about the program.

The federally funded breakfast program is administered by the California Department of Education. School districts are reimbursed through the program for every breakfast served, based on the child’s family income, but often the program doesn’t cover all of the schools’ costs.

Last school year, nine of Ventura County’s 20 school districts offered breakfast programs at some schools, said Alfred Tweltridge, assistant director of the child nutrition division with the California Department of Education.

Those districts are Conejo Valley Unified, Moorpark Unified, Oak Park Unified, Ocean View Elementary, Ojai Unified, Oxnard Union High, Santa Paula Elementary, Simi Valley Unified and Ventura Unified.

Virtually all county schools offer free or reduced-price lunch programs.

Schools statewide are being asked to take part in the breakfast program, Tweltridge said. “CRLA is pushing it and we’re pushing it,” he said. “A hungry child doesn’t learn. Studies show that kids who have breakfast do better on tests, absenteeism is reduced and they do better in the classroom.”

Some teachers agree that a morning meal would help their students who otherwise wouldn’t eat until lunchtime.

One morning last year, bilingual teacher Donna Branstrom discovered a student in her kindergarten class at Sunkist Elementary School in the Hueneme Elementary School District eating his breakfast--a handful of cereal in his pocket.

Other students, who apparently haven’t eaten breakfast, are ravenous by 10 a.m. and line up for as many as 10 cookies or other snacks, Branstrom said.

“I know the program would be of great benefit in this district,” said Branstrom, past president of the Hueneme Education Assn., a teachers union.

In the aftermath of last year’s freeze that damaged crops and reduced harvests, families of migrant workers in particular have been hit by economic hard times, Tweltridge and community workers say.

Because many of those families are struggling financially, the breakfast program may be needed next school year more than ever, they say.

“During the freeze, we had reports from people in the county, especially in the Fillmore-Piru area, that there were a lot of unemployed farm workers who had kids, and they basically were running out of food,” said Noelia Chavez, community development coordinator for El Concilio.

But the breakfast program is not available in some districts where it is needed most, including Fillmore Unified, Hueneme Elementary and Oxnard Elementary, Lopez said. And it should be expanded in Santa Paula, he said.

Several school districts in the county offered breakfast to students years ago but the programs lapsed, either because of low student participation or because of costs incurred by the districts for supervision and transportation.

The Oxnard Elementary School District offered breakfast until about 15 years ago, when “participation fell off to the point where it was not financially feasible for us to continue,” Supt. Norman R. Brekke said.

Rio Elementary School District discontinued its breakfast program about 1978, when Proposition 13 required budget cuts, Supt. Pete Rogalsky said. However, about 60% of Rio’s 2,600 students, who already qualify for a lunch program, would benefit from a breakfast program, he said.

“I see a need for it,” Rogalsky said. “Our decision is: Can we afford to give them a breakfast program?”

The main obstacle to starting breakfast programs, some officials said, is money. The programs require extra kitchen help, aides to oversee the children, and changes in bus schedules to get children to school early enough to eat before class.

In the Oxnard district, for example, where officials cut $3.1 million from the budget, “the program would have to be self-sustaining,” Brekke said. “We’re in no position in this district to assume any program that would cost us funds out of the general budget.”

However, Tweltridge said districts can get around money obstacles by offering breakfast during a midmorning break instead of before school, or by offering cold rather than hot foods.

“It’s not necessarily true that you have to incur extra expenses to start a breakfast program,” Tweltridge said. “If schools want to have a breakfast program, they’ll make it work.”

Some school districts, such as Fillmore Unified, have never offered breakfast. About 44% of Fillmore’s 3,292 students qualified last year for free or reduced-price lunches, Assistant Supt. Robert L. Kernen said.

California Rural Assistance League representatives are scheduled to meet with Fillmore officials on Aug. 20 and with officials in the Rio Elementary School District on Aug. 21.

In the Ventura Unified School District, breakfast is served at the four middle schools, at Buena and Ventura high schools and at three elementary schools, said Gayla J. Pierce, the district’s food services director. The program is available to all students, she said.

“Unfortunately, when people think of meals at school, they think it’s a welfare program or for people who don’t have a lot of money,” Pierce said. “That’s not true.”

In addition to helping low-income families, breakfast at school can also be a boon to single parents or two-income families who can afford to pay full price for a meal but may not always have time to serve their children breakfast, Pierce said.

One reason participation may have been low in some districts is that students were turned off by menus that featured oatmeal and Cream of Wheat, officials said.

But school breakfast menus have improved in the past five years, they said.

On Monday, the first day of year-round school at Ventura’s E. P. Foster and Sheridan Way elementary schools, breakfast will be sausage-and-cheese muffins, pineapple tidbits and milk, Pierce said. Other typical school breakfasts feature waffles, grilled cheese sandwiches or cinnamon rolls with fruit or fruit juice and milk.

To qualify for free breakfast and lunch programs, a family of four, for example, must earn less than $17,420 annually, under federal guidelines. It must earn less than $24,790 to qualify for reduced-price meals.

Because federal and state subsidies do not always cover the cost of breakfast programs, school districts must sometimes decide whether to use general-fund money or not offer the program at all.

“The point is raised: Who’s responsible for feeding the kids?” Fillmore’s Kernen said. “How far does the school go in serving the needs of the students? In today’s society, the general feeling seems to be, if there’s a need, the school district should fill it, regardless of their responsibilities for educating the children.”

But Dorina Zamudio, whose two daughters attend Oxnard schools, said feeding children is part of a district’s obligation to educate them about good nutrition.

“A lot of parents here in Colonia work on farms and have to leave at 5 o’clock in the morning, and it’s really hard when you don’t have time to give the kid something,” said Zamudio, vice president of Padres Unidos, the Oxnard parent group. “If the money is available, it should be used.”