If you ask OH students, they’ll tell you that they have never seen the school’s menstrual product dispensers stocked. While locations like the nurse’s office have free, available menstrual products for students, students do not have access to these necessary products in the school bathrooms.
According to the Illinois General Assembly, “[M]enstrual hygiene products shall be made available in bathrooms of every school building that are open for student use in grades 4 through 12 during the regular school day,” and “school district[s] shall make menstrual (rather than feminine) hygiene products available, at no cost to students.”
Even though free access to menstrual products for students is a state requirement, it is not always followed by OH. Most women’s bathrooms in the school have no menstrual products available in the dispensers and have remained that way for most of the year.
“They were in the bathrooms at one point but staff found that [menstrual products] were being used in inappropriate ways, not for the way they were intended,” said OH head nurse Jennifer Pienkos.
Students who need menstrual products in an emergency must go to the nurse’s office or ask a peer for one. These extra steps turn what could have been a discrete emergency into what can be an embarrassing and lengthy search for necessary products.
“I find it often a struggle to go around asking for [menstrual products] from different students because a lot of girls don’t keep it in their bags unless they have their period,” said OH senior Audrey Jomant.
There are many reasons why these menstrual products may not be available in bathrooms. One of the main reasons is the misuse of these products by students. In the past, students have used the products available in bathrooms for incorrect use and caused trouble for the school.
While this is a valid reason to be wary of giving these products to students, they should still be provided because the benefits they provide to students outweigh the possible trouble caused by them.
“There’s a real thing called period poverty,” said OH Health teacher Wendy Monn. “They actually do have [menstrual products] in the bathrooms, but due to vandalism a lot of people will take the pads or tampons and stick them on the ceiling or soak them in water and throw them up to the ceiling, so it’s wasteful not realizing there are individuals that don’t have the finances to purchase these products.”
According to Nemours’ Kids Health, “Most girls get their first period when they’re between 10 and 15 years old. The average age is 12, but every girl’s body has its own schedule.”
Many freshmen begin high school from ages 13-15, and because of this, they may be getting their first period during the school day. Students receiving their first period may be unprepared for it, so having readily available period products would make this process much easier and less stressful.
However, inexperienced students may feel embarrassed or deem it time-consuming to walk across the school to get menstrual products from the nurse’s office.
It is important to clarify as well that cisgender women are not the only student group that would benefit from having free access to these products. Transgender male students and non-binary students also need to use these products, even though they might not identify as women anymore. Because of this, the school should have all school bathrooms stocked, not just the women’s bathrooms, because more students will benefit from these products than many consider.
“We have several people come in daily to ask if [students] can grab some pads or tampons, [menstrual products] are right by the nurse’s office door so there is discrete access for students,” said Pienkos.
Another possible reason that the school may not be providing period products is simply a lack of funding. Period products are notoriously expensive, and it would be very difficult for the school to keep every bathroom fully stocked every day without a significant increase in funding.
“Years ago, there was a big push to the district and people used to have to pay 50 cents and then we got a big grant supplying them for years and years and now I just think the grant wasn’t fulfilled or people were wasting them and shoving them down toilets so they took them away and put them a place where [students] wouldn’t normally be able to access [menstrual products],” said Monn.
One possible solution for the school admin is to keep only the most-used bathrooms stocked. This would ensure that students still have access to these necessary products, but the school does not need to spend an excessive amount of money to keep all bathrooms stocked.
It is valued so students can be as relaxed while learning, having these products back in the school’s bathrooms can improve student comfort and overall create a more-welcoming environment for those in need of menstrual products.
42Fifty is the student media Publication of Oswego High School, Oswego, IL. Stories attributed to 42Fifty are written by editorial staff, or in the case of staff editorial, reflect a quorum of the student staff's ideas and opinions. To learn more about the 42Fifty staff, please see the About or Our Staff page on the website.
