It’s not uncommon to see a blend of service options from Traditional Breakfast to Breakfast in the Classroom (BIC) in a single district. A flexible breakfast program can enable you to maximize participation levels depending on each school’s characteristics.

While breakfast service decisions are often determined on a school-by-school basis with consideration for individual site criteria and needs, it’s important to remember that the overall success of breakfast implementation is determined by your ability to balance the expenses and revenues in your fund. A common question is: what is the threshold of eligibility that will ensure fiscal success for universal breakfast implementation? And more specifically, what is the eligibility threshold for free and reduced-priced meals that will ensure fiscal sustainability for a universal BIC model? The common presumption is that a school should have at least 60% eligibility for free and reduced-priced meals to justify operating a universal program, but many districts challenge that notion.

Districts with 40% to 100% eligibility for free and reduced-priced meals can operate universal BIC in schools. They evaluate the potential by analyzing the probable participation results across all of their sites. As long as expenses do not exceed revenue, their breakfast expansion is fiscally sustainable. For traditional cafeteria breakfast service served before the bell, a typical threshold for implementation is 35% eligibility for free and reduced-priced meals, but it is not uncommon to see breakfast offered at much lower thresholds.

Traditional breakfast can be managed with limited labor (depending on the menu), and it provides an option for hungry kids regardless of income level. Our Breakfast Site Calculator and Breakfast District-Wide Calculator will assist in analyzing the feasibility of expansion for your district. You can build “what if?” scenarios by setting up presumptions of participation based on the planned breakfast models at each of the schools in your district. The calculator will then extrapolate the revenue and expense for you.