WASHINGTON—More low-income children are starting the day with a healthy morning meal as participation in the School Breakfast Program continued its upswing during the 2012-2013 school year. The Food Research and Action Center’s (FRAC) annual School Breakfast Scorecard found that more than 10.8 million children received a free or reduced-price breakfast on the average school day during the 2012-2013 school year, an increase of nearly 311,000 children from the previous year.
FRAC also measures School Breakfast Program participation by comparing the number of low-income children receiving school breakfast to the number of such children receiving school lunch. Nationally, the number of low-income children participating in school breakfast for every 100 participating in school lunch was 51.9, an increase from 50.4:100 during the previous school year. The 2011-2012 school year had marked the first year – an important milestone – that more than half of low-income children who ate school lunch also ate school breakfast.