2025 Massachusetts School Breakfast Report Card
2025 Massachusetts Breakfast Report Card, Ending Hunger in Our Schools, ranks the state’s high-poverty schools on their breakfast participation rate for March SY 2024/25.
This year’s report revealed that only 48% of students enrolled in the Commonwealth’s high-poverty K-12 schools receive the free breakfast to which they are entitled, down from the high-water mark of 58% during the 2019/20 school year. High-poverty schools are defined as those with 60%+ free/reduced-price student populations. The drop in participation is largely explained by the limited access to school breakfast. Most schools serve breakfast in the cafeteria before classes begin, making it difficult for some students to access, especially if they arrive at school on a bus shortly before classes begin.
To view your school’s performance, click here.
2025 Massachusetts Breakfast Report Card, Ending Hunger in Our Schools, ranks the state’s high-poverty schools on their breakfast participation rate for March SY 2024/25.
This year’s report revealed that only 48% of students enrolled in the Commonwealth’s high-poverty K-12 schools receive the free breakfast to which they are entitled, down from the high-water mark of 58% during the 2019/20 school year. High-poverty schools are defined as those with 60%+ free/reduced-price student populations. The drop in participation is largely explained by the limited access to school breakfast. Most schools serve breakfast in the cafeteria before classes begin, making it difficult for some students to access, especially if they arrive at school on a bus shortly before classes begin.
To view your school’s performance, click here.
Participation rates would jump if schools switched to the after the bell breakfast in the classroom model, which could increase participation rates to 80% or more. If all 953 high-poverty schools reached 80% of their students with free breakfast, an additional $73 million in — currently forfeited — federal USDA reimbursements would flow into the state.
In May 2023, Governor Maura Healey signed into law the School Meals for All Act, making Massachusetts the eighth state in the country to provide free breakfast and lunch to any child in the K-12 system by supplementing the funding provided by the USDA for low-income children. Nearly one out of four Massachusetts households with children face food insecurity.
To read this year’s Breakfast Report Card, click here.
Past Breakfast Report Cards:
2024 School Breakfast Report Card
2019 School Breakfast Report Card
2018 School Breakfast Report Card
2017 School Breakfast Report Card
Due to disruptions caused by the coronavirus, a Report Card was not published between 2020 and 2023.