Peck Slip School and DOE Reach Pact in Classroom Breakfast Battle

With the requirement lifted to serve breakfast in the classroom, some children are back to eating in the cafeteria before the morning bell. Photo: Carl Glassman/Tribeca Trib

The Peck Slip School’s food fight with the Department of Education has ended, and there are winners on both sides.

The battle began about three months ago [1] when the Department of Education mandated that the brand new elementary school participate in its Breakfast in the Classroom program being rolled out citywide over three years. The program took the place of breakfast being served in the cafeteria before school begins.

Aimed at reducing student hunger, the program is said to be working well at many schools with low-income families. But Peck Slip parents and teachers called it a bad fit for their school, with its more affluent parent population. Children are losing 20 to 30 minutes of instructional time each morning, they said. In addition, serving food in the classrooms could create unsanitary conditions. (The school already has a mouse problem, according to Principal Maggie Siena, and food in the classroom “doesn’t help.”)

“We know absolutely that it’s a disruption to the morning routine,” PTA co-president Vance Gorke said back in December. “That’s two-and-a-half hours a week, almost two full school days a month, which is crazy.”

Community Board 1, in a resolution, supported the parents, and even a leader of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger, the group that had pushed for the program, said she favored allowing some schools to opt out of it.

Late last month, the DOE announced that it had come up with a plan that would end mandated classroom breakfasts at the school.

“When I emailed the news to the teachers, I could hear cheering in the halls,” the principal told parents in a note announcing the change.

Under the new plan, which followed a January meeting of parent leaders, school staff and a slew of DOE officials, the DOE announced a compromise. Breakfast could be offered in the cafeteria before school starts, but of the bagged “grab and go” variety. Children who arrived late could still carry their breakfast into the classroom.

“[The DOE] feels comfortable that their needs are being met in terms of their confidence that children who don’t have breakfast will have an opportunity to eat it,” Siena said, standing outside the school last week after ringing the morning bell. “And I feel confident that instruction won’t be impacted."

Gorke, the PTA co-president, said he was pleased by the policy change, “but it’s not perfect.”

“We’re hoping that the majority of kids get here on time and eat in the cafeteria,” he noted, “because this still leaves us vulnerable. Once parents get in the habit of coming in late, it can still be disruptive.”

But after the first week, Siena said, few kids had arrived late to class, breakfast in hand.

Breakfast in the Classroom has still not been introduced into other Lower Manhattan schools. Asked whether the Peck Slip School compromise would eventually serve as a model for those schools, a DOE spokeswoman responded in a statement: “We work closely with each building to meet the unique needs of schools and their communities and are continuing to assess the program as part of the expansion process.” She said the “option” of eating in the cafeteria or bringing breakfast into the classroom “is one of the ways that we’re working with schools to continue to evolve the program.”

Meanwhile, following months of anger and discouragement over what appeared to be an intractable decision by the DOE, parents now laud the agency for responding to their concerns.

“It makes you feel like you are a part of the process,” said Megan Malvern, the mother of a first grader, “instead of just knocking on the door.”