K-16 Schools

STEPS 7 & 10: Businesses…in the community welcome chest/breastfeeding families…Education systems, including childcare, K-12, colleges and universities, are encouraged to include chest/breastfeeding friendly curricula at all levels.

Ten Steps to a Breastfeeding Family Friendly Community

Educators have an extraordinary opportunity: every classroom from preschool through graduate school is a place where breastfeeding, chestfeeding, and human milk feeding can be made visible, normal, and unremarkable.

Many of us learned about “mammals” in elementary school science. Yet how many of us were taught that because we are mammals, it is normal for our species to feed our young from the breast or chest, or to feed human milk? When educators include this — through curriculum content, through books and images in the classroom, through how they talk about their own families — they are doing one of the most powerful pieces of cultural change work available to a community.

We also normalize chest/breastfeeding in our schools when policies allow parents to nurse in the classroom, at school events, and anywhere on school property where they are otherwise allowed to be. And we support our own colleagues and students when we make space for them to express milk during the school day.

What this looks like in real communities

The schools work isn’t theoretical. Here is what’s been achieved in Durham, North Carolina:

Durham Public Schools — Step 10 achieved, April 2025. After a multi-year relationship-building effort beginning in 2020, Durham Public Schools formally met Step 10 of the Breastfeeding Family Friendly Communities initiative. The Breastfeed Durham team — Julianne Williams, Rachel Lewis, and Love Anderson — engaged DPS leadership in discussions about breastfeeding education across grade levels and proposed supplemental curriculum materials. On February 7, 2025, DPS administrator Nicholas King confirmed that breastfeeding education is part of the North Carolina Standard Course of Study within the Family and Consumer Sciences curriculum, and that the study of mammals is introduced in the 4th grade NCSCOS.

Duke University — Step 10 achieved, February 2025. Duke University successfully passed Step 10 following a formal review on February 10, 2025. The evaluation assessed curriculum integration of breastfeeding education, partnerships with community organizations, and inclusion of breastfeeding images and materials across campus.

Durham Technical Community College — in progress. Durham Tech has established a dedicated lactation space on the first floor of Building 10 (Student Services). Faculty members Shawna Daniels and Cathy Collie-Robinson have added adult-centered materials to make the space more inviting, and the institution has begun distributing curriculum materials strategically across departments.

A lactation-rooms-on-a-budget success story. A Breastfeeding Family Friendly Communities team met with the HR department in their local school district, presented the importance of supporting breastfeeding in schools, and was able to furnish lactation rooms in 14 schools for $1,200. The lesson: the right conversation with the right office can move further than you expect, faster than you expect.

Building a breastfeeding-friendly curriculum

Research and gather resources

Find out who makes curriculum decisions

  • Contact your local school board or department of education.
  • In the U.S., you may also need to engage your State Board of Education.
  • Map who in your school district has actual decision-making power before you write your first email.

Supporting breastfeeding students and employees

Be an advocate

  • Identify the decision-makers at the school level and the district level.
  • Reach out to teachers who are balancing breastfeeding or pumping with the demands of a class schedule. Listen to their stories first. Education Week’s coverage of teacher-moms forced to choose between breastfeeding and teaching is a powerful place to start.
  • Contact the Human Resources department in your community’s school district. (See the 14-schools-for-$1,200 story above — this is often where the fastest wins live.)

Help create safe, clean lactation spaces

Teachers and school staff may not need a custom-built lactation room — they may just need someone to identify and protect existing space:

  • A small office
  • The school nurse’s office
  • The teacher resource room
  • A screened-off area of a conference room
  • A classroom during the teacher’s planning period — and other staff letting their colleagues know it’s available

Get the message out

  • Speak at a Chamber of Commerce “open mic night.”
  • Present the BFFC Business Case for Breastfeeding to schools in your community.
  • Approach the head of your local school board or educational system.
  • Present to your State teachers’ board or department of education.

Quick-start ideas

If the whole framework feels like a lot, here are small things one person can do this year:

  • Put together a nursing basket for any pregnant teacher or staff member at your kid’s school. Include a few of your favorites and a few generic, less-personal items — a breastmilk storage bag, a small cooler for milk transport, a teething necklace, a list of local lactation support resources, and a copy of If My Mom Were a Platypus by Dia Michels. Add a note offering to be a contact when they come back from leave.
  • Volunteer to read a book that normalizes breastfeeding at one preschool storytime in your community. Donate the book to the classroom.
  • Audit one classroom or one wing of your school. Are there any books, posters, or curriculum materials that include breastfeeding imagery? If not, that’s where to start.
  • Welcome breastfeeding patrons at PTA meetings, school plays, sports events, and graduations — including volunteers nursing during events.

Title IX: pregnant and parenting students’ rights

In the U.S., Title IX is a federal civil rights law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex — including pregnancy and parental status — in educational programs and activities.

No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance. — U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights

Under Title IX:

  • Lactating students cannot be penalized for time spent expressing milk. Absences for pumping should be excused, grades cannot be lowered, and students must be able to obtain any missed information.
  • The U.S. Department of Education encourages schools to provide lactating students with a private space to breastfeed, pump milk, or address other lactation needs during the school day.
  • The Pregnant Scholar is the most comprehensive source for U.S. student parents on their lactation rights.

For colleges and universities

If you work with or in a higher-education institution, the BFFC Self-Assessment for a Breastfeeding-Friendly Universityis the place to start. BFFC and Breastfeed Durham, in partnership with Duke and Durham Tech, developed this checklist by adapting the Ten Steps to meet Title IX requirements and institutional norms — so it’s been road-tested in both a major research university and a community college.

Resources

BFFC tools:

Real-world examples:

Title IX and student rights:

Educator-specific:

Curriculum and activity resources: