Breakfast Food for Thought

West Covina’s poorest schoolchildren won’t have to sit much longer hungry and inattentive in class because their parents cannot always provide breakfast. Their hunger pains, documented in a recent “Hunger in America” series by Times Staff Writer Sonia Nazario, will ease and their ability to learn will increase. That’s because a majority of the school board finally voted to put the health of low-income students over board members’ political ideology.

The school board had balked at providing a government-subsidized breakfast for poorer students. A majority of members had argued that supplying the free breakfast would usurp parental responsibilities. They have a point: Parents should make sure their children get the nutrition they need to thrive and succeed. But when parents can’t provide, children should not suffer.

The board made the right decision, although Board President Mike Spence clung to his contention that subsidized school breakfasts are anti-family. He is entitled to his opinion, but allowing children to go to school hungry is counterproductive.

Poor children have done without breakfast for years in West Covina. The Times’ articles calling attention to their plight sparked a generous outpouring of donated goods and checks, which volunteers have used to start a free breakfast program independent of government assistance at the Edgewood Middle School.

The generosity continues unabated. The Good Samaritans feed 200 hungry children every morning. On Tuesday, the Kaiser Permanente Foundation donated $5,000. The parent company of Queen of the Valley Hospital in West Covina also donated $5,000. Another $2,500 has arrived and $10,000 more is pledged.

West Covina wasn’t the only Southern California school district guilty of failing to take advantage of the federal government’s longstanding breakfast program for poor students. Nazario documented 193 schools that refused to participate although they enrolled a high percentage of needy children. In the wake of Nazario’s series, at least 60 districts have rushed to apply for the breakfast program. As a result, fewer children will fail because they are too hungry to learn.

In West Covina, the new breakfast program is expected to start passing out the milk and cereal by Feb. 1. Unfortunately, the reprieve may be short-lived because of a change in the political climate in Washington.

The House Republicans’ “contract with America” includes the Personal Responsibility Act, which proposes changes to the federal nutrition programs, including the school breakfast program. The GOP approach would turn the programs over to the states, and also proposes a 5% cut in the grants. Congress needs to save money wherever it can--but not at the expense of poor children too hungry to keep their minds on schoolwork.