From our friends at Highline Public Schools:

Breakfast at school is critical for students who don’t get regular meals at home. But not every student is able to make it to school early enough to stop by the cafeteria for breakfast. That’s why we give students options.

Thanks to a new vending machine at Tyee High School, students can grab breakfast on the go – before school or between classes.

Tyee students uses a new breakfast vending machine.

The machine doesn’t accept cash or card. Instead, students input their student ID and cafeteria pin to get a nutritious breakfast.

A student inputs their student ID in a vending machine.

The vending machine is stocked with items like cereal bars, mandarin orange cups, string cheese, fruit juice and milk. The menu changes regularly to give students choices. Coming soon: bagels with strawberry cream cheese, banana bread, carrots, apple sauce and yogurt with granola.

Breakfast items from the vending machine.

The vending machine was funded through a grant to the Nutrition Services department.

“Tyee already has a successful traditional breakfast option as well as a breakfast cart that provides grab-and-go options for students who are tardy,” explained Lisa Johnson, Director of Nutrition Services. “Because Tyee campus is so spread out, the vending machine provides another access point for students who  may miss the traditional breakfast before school.”

A group of Tyee students line up to use the new vending machine.

Between 30 and 50 breakfast meals are served each day through the vending machine. In the first few months, the number of students eating breakfast at school increased by nearly 15 percent.

“Breakfast is important every day and we are trying to promote many opportunities to access breakfast. We didn’t want to disrupt the positive breakfast environment that occurs before school, but that meant looking for other ideas to promote breakfast after the bell.  We are so encouraged with the initial success that we may look to expand this option at other sites,” said Johnson.

Thank you to our Nutrition Services department for thinking outside the box to bring this new service to students.

Founder/Publisher/Editor. Three-time National Emmy Award winning Writer (“Bill Nye the Science Guy”), Director, Producer, Journalist and more...