New breakfast in the classroom program to be implemented in all Crane schools

One local school is hoping to solve a problem by adding a new breakfast program.

This program called, BIC or Breakfast In the Classroom, offers students a way to stay full and stay focused throughout the school day.

Crane School District has already started this program in one of their preschools, Great Beginnings Preschool.

Dale Ponder, chief of finance and operations told News 11 that the Crane School District hopes to have this new program implemented in all of their schools in a year to a year and a half time.

“Essentially what we do is we bring the food to the students,” Ponder shared with News 11.

The problem they found was that 1/3 of their students were attending class hungry and were spending all of their lunchtime socializing rather than eating, Ponder explained.

“So the initiative that we brought is to bring the breakfast to the student and allow them to be engaged, be well fed and at the same time allow them to improve their academic success by being able to learn while not being hungry,” he said.

Crane is starting this program in their lower grades before working up through the middle schools, Ponder said.

“We are encouraging all parents, currently all of our students throughout all of our schools to both eat breakfast and lunch, which is free to them regardless of their economic status,” he said. “There’s no cost to the parents, to the families to be able to enjoy a nice breakfast in the morning in this setting or even lunch in the afternoon,” he added .

Something unique about this program is it allows the student to make a choice for themselves of what they want to eat based on the menu provided.

“It also gives the teacher the opportunity to discuss and kind of stretch the instructional time even though it’s not really instructional time, but they’re able to be there with them and say here’s the colors of your Tricks cereal, for example, and the different shapes of some of the items, so it really does stretch the instructional day as well,” he said.

Breakfast begins at 8 o’clock before class starts and the students meet in their classroom instead of the cafeteria.