FULL TABLE SET FOR KIDS : SAUGUS UNION CAMPUSES TO JOIN BREAKFAST PROGRAM.

Byline: Mary Schubert Daily News Staff Writer

Two schools have been added to the Saugus Union School District's breakfast program, which will be available to students at James Foster and Santa Clarita elementary schools early next month.

The morning meals have been offered at Cedarcreek Elementary School since July 1995, and the district expanded the program to four sites during their summer-school session, said Sherri Weimer, a food-service technician who oversees the school district's breakfast and lunch programs.

The summer breakfast service at Highlands, Bouquet Canyon, Santa Clarita and Cedarcreek schools was so popular that the school board recently voted to expand the school-year program, Weimer said.

Although classes resume Aug. 19 at Foster and Santa Clarita, the breakfast service won't begin until Sept. 3. Food-service workers will hand out samples of breakfast fare to parents and students at the back-to-school-night programs Aug. 29, Weimer said.

School officials attribute the popularity of the breakfast program to a few factors.

Many parents make long commutes from their Santa Clarita Valley homes to their jobs, meaning they must leave the house around daybreak to beat the rush-hour traffic. Most of them take their kids to school on the way to work, some dropping off their children at the school's day care program as early as 6:30 a.m.

At Santa Clarita Elementary School, class doesn't begin until 8:30 a.m., meaning some youngsters have been on campus a full two hours before the bell rings, Weimer said.

The program also is meant to serve children from low-income families. These youngsters qualify for free or reduced-price lunches and breakfasts, either paying nothing or 30 cents for the morning meal, Weimer said.

All other children pay $1 for breakfast.

Joan Lucid, principal of Cedarcreek Elementary, said the breakfast program has been a hit among the 580 kindergarten through sixth-grade students at her school, along with the preschoolers in the campus day care program.

``We're currently serving about 100 breakfasts per morning,'' Lucid said, noting another 50 are eaten by the preschoolers.

``It's really been a nice program for us. The greatest benefit we've had is children being on time for school,'' she said, adding the 7:20 a.m. to 7:40 a.m. meal also serves as insurance that students will make it to class by 7:55 a.m.

``We make sure that (children) have something that's nutritious, and that their stomachs are full, and they're able to concentrate,'' the principal said.

In this harried age of two-career families, morning can be a hectic time when parents are trying to awaken, bathe and dress themselves and their kids in time to rush out to work or school.

Breakfast often gets squeezed out of the daily routine, but the school programs allow children to eat the food that somebody else has prepared and that somebody else will clean up.

``The parents are appreciative that we have a service like this at school,'' Lucid said. Students scan the breakfast menus for their favorite items. ``If we have French toast, we have a lot of kids. That tends to be a popular breakfast.''

Weimer said about 10 percent of the students would have to take part in the breakfast program for it to pay for itself. Enrollments at Foster and Santa Clarita are 750 and 580, respectively. ``We need to feed about 75 kids to break even,'' she said.

Weimer said the breakfast program is completely subsidized by state and federal government funding, and therefore doesn't cost the 11-school Saugus Union School District anything. By early 1997, she would like to add the breakfast program to a fourth school.