Los Angeles – Wendy Greuel addressed the LAUSD Board of Education today, urging board members to continue funding the classroom breakfast program and to support a proposal that would ban student suspensions due to willful defiance.
The breakfast program helps feed nearly 200,000 students in 280 schools across the district.
Since the Breakfast in the Classroom program was launched, the number of kids eating breakfast at school has increase drastically, from just under a third to some 80 percent.
“I like to say that we can’t have a world-class city without a world-class education system, but we cannot have great classrooms when our students are going hungry,” Greuel said. “Study after study shows us that a hungry child cannot learn at the same rate as a well-fed one. For far too long we have let adult issues get in the way of kid’s success at this district. Today I call on the school board to not make this mistake again. This really is a simple choice about supporting what’s in the best interest of our children.”
Greuel also called on the School Board to support a proposal by Board President Mónica García that would make LAUSD the first district in California to ban suspensions for willful defiance.
Willful defiance suspensions accounted for 48% of 710,000 suspensions across the state in 2011-2012, according to the Los Angeles Times, and the practice has received criticism as a catch-all that often sends good students out of the classroom.
“We need to spend more time with these students, not less. We need these students in the classroom to help them address their issues and get back on track,” Greuel said. “Banning suspensions for this vague catch-all category will help us address routine disciplines issues, with counselors available who can provide the appropriate services, so that we are fixing the problem, not just trying to make it go away.”
