At North Lenoir High, later breakfast is twice as good

North Lenoir High students pick up breakfast at the Grab-N-Go kiosk in the student center this week during Second Chance Breakfast – 10 minutes set aside after first period to encourage more students to eat a morning meal. Adding a later option has doubled the number of breakfast meals served this school year.

Timing may be the secret to success in catering to the tastes of high school students.

North Lenoir High School has made a case for that strategy this school year by offering a second option for breakfast – later and quicker – that has more than doubled the number of students eating a morning meal at school.

Breakfast service this year averages between 400-450 students a day and has reached as high as 498 – more than half the student population and considerably more if you exclude the number of students enrolled in online college classes who are not on campus in the morning.

Most North Lenoir students get breakfast on the go during Second Chance Breakfast, a new wrinkle in the daily schedule inserted during a slightly longer break after first period.

Between 9:10 and 9:20 a.m., cafeteria staff at three stations serve easy-to-handle breakfast options to about 300 students who converge on the cafeteria and student center, huddle for a few minutes with friends and head off to what North Lenoir calls SOAR, its 35-minute remediation period.

“It’s like drive-through,” principal Gil Respess said. “It’s real quick.”

It’s also real effective, in his view. In addition to providing students with important nutrition, Second Chance Breakfast has also impacted student productivity and made for a more positive environment, according to Respess.

“I think it’s made a difference in a lot of things,” the principal said. “I think kids are more attentive in classrooms. The climate of the school has been a lot different. Our discipline referrals overall are down. A lot of things are contributing to that but I would say the breakfast schedule is part of that as well.”

The connection between a good breakfast and student success is the recurring theme of National School Breakfast Week, being observed this week. According to the School Nutrition Association, students who eat school breakfasts are more likely to score higher on standardized tests, have better concentration and memory, be more alert and maintain a healthy weight.

North Lenoir still offers an early breakfast in the cafeteria, where service begins about 20 minutes before classes start at 7:45 a.m. Like Second Chance Breakfast and like lunch, the meals are free to all students. Still, as LCPS School Nutrition Director Danelle Smith said, “Most high school students are not ready for breakfast at 7:30 or 8 o’clock in the morning. The Second Chance Breakfast meets the needs of our high school students.”

The success of a Second Chance Breakfast schedule at South Lenoir High over the last five years and Respess’ research into the link between poverty, hunger and learning convinced him to revise the daily schedule, building in the later breakfast time and the remediation period.

“The students really enjoy that longer break after first period,” he said. “It’s really a powerful piece – having breakfast and having a little longer to get where you need to go. They’re not abusing that time either.”

In a whirl of activity on a recent morning, cafeteria manager Ada Hood and her staff served a choice of French toast sticks, muffin, turkey sausage patty, potato wedges and mixed berry cup, plus milk and juice, to hundreds of students. Ten minutes after the crowd converged, it had disappeared, fed and ready to deal with the rest of the school day.

“We’ve got this down pat,” Hood said. “Our goal is 500 a day. We’re going to get there.”