A Better Policy for Eating in School

Better School Snacking Policies Through Student-Funded Snack Drives

     Based on a survey we (Sean Perry, DJ Parker, Justin Green, and Peter Le) conducted, it became understood that, due to strict teacher guidelines and overall lack of access to snacks, students besides us have experienced negative impacts on their educational experience in class due to hunger. Let’s look at it this way, if we’re hungry, we’re most likely focused on how hungry we are and not on the lecture our teacher is giving. And these problems are especially seen in those who need extra nutrition throughout the day like students who are diabetic or our student athletes, just as a generalized example. 

     Our proposal is simple and effective. Through installing a snack drive where students can donate money or snacks to their classes, we’ll have a stash of snacks for students to access when they are hungry. Since this comes out of student donation, the school budget isn’t harmed and students take personal responsibility in the policy.

Franklin Falcons, we’re tired of having growling stomachs and we want a solution!

A little background to the issue at hand. As football players, my group and I have known the struggle of malnutrition throughout the day as we went from a long day of learning to hard physical practice for athletics, and the effects were horrendous. Players found themselves hungry and cramped because throughout the day, we were not getting enough food into our systems. But it turns out it isn’t just us. Students answered our survey complaining that when they are hungry in class they try to tune out their growling stomachs.

We Say NAY!!!!!! Okay, so maybe not that aggressive but we just want to stuff our faces once in a while.

The majority of students believe that this is a real issue and agree that they would benefit from this project.

Peer feedback revealed that this is an issue that is common among students at Franklin. A large portion of students deal with hunger during school and elect to fight through it as they push their educational day. The original idea seemed unclear to a small portion of students so we created a Google Doc to clear up any confusion and get more precise feedback. Our survey received a response rate of about 17% of the school.

Of the 59 responses, the majority of students agreed that they experienced hunger during class and decided to fight through it. Of these students, a large number admitted that the hunger caused them to lose focus on the course being taught. When placed in the scenario of having to pay attention in class and fight human nature to eat and fuel ourselves, human nature seems to have the upper hand every time. When asked about this issue, a Franklin student said "I try to drown out the sounds of my growling stomach. I also get very fatigued." When asked what their response is to hunger during class, another student responded "I can't eat because I don't have food at the house."

What are we proposing?

Our Proposal

Through installing a snack drive where students can donate money or snacks to their classes, we’ll have a stash of snacks for students to access when they are hungry. Since this comes out of student donation, the school budget isn’t harmed and students take personal responsibility in the policy.

Trade-offs

• Potentially causes a mess in classrooms.

• The school most likely has to fund the project to keep it running efficiently.

• Project deemed pointless because students can bring their own snacks/food.

Benefits

• Students are able to fight hunger and fuel themselves.

• Decreases growling stomachs and increases student attentiveness.

• Students do not feel drained throughout the day.

• Better student performance as a result of increased focus.