MPS committee approves pilot program for free menstrual products in school bathrooms

The students of one Milwaukee public school could have free period products in their bathrooms next school year, under a resolution approved Thursday by a Milwaukee School Board committee.

If approved by the full board May 30, Milwaukee Public Schools will provide free menstrual product dispensers in at least half of one school's bathrooms, including any gender neutral bathrooms. After surveying students about the pilot program, the board would consider expanding the program to other schools in the 2025-26 school year.

Missy Zombor, who sponsored the resolution with fellow board member Jilly Gokalgandhi, said she raised the idea after hearing it from students. She is recommending that the program be piloted at High School of the Arts.

"No one has to ask for toilet paper, and you shouldn’t have to ask for menstrual products either," Zombor said. "It’s a dignity and equity issue."

One of the students Zombor heard from was Saadio Abdi, a senior at Milwaukee High School of the Arts, who last year asked all school board candidates about whether they would improve access to menstrual products.

Abdi said she had been talking about the idea with her friends, Ma'Lanni Colon-Rodriquez, Olivia Duer and Nariah Nelson. They've been having trouble since middle school with getting period products when they needed them. They're available in the nurse's office, but it can take too long to get there during the limited transition times between classes.

"We find it pretty hard for us to go to the bathroom, find out that we're on our period, and then run downstairs all the way to the first floor while we're on the third floor, to get period products," Abdi said. "Especially with some of us who have really heavy periods, having to like, stuff yourself with tissue so you can get downstairs and come back up, it just creates a lot of unsanitary situations and discomfort."

Abdi said sometimes the trips to the nurse's office cause students to run late to class: "Then you go through the door, and it's like all eyes are you, and it's like, 'Why are you late; where's your pass?' With certain teachers, I would just straight up tell them, and they would get uncomfortable as well."

A spokesperson for MPS said schools are able to order menstrual pads and tampons by mail, and the products are primarily kept in nurses' offices. Sometimes they're stored in a school's main office with a secretary, parent coordinator or designated staff member, the spokesperson said.

It can be hard for some students to have to ask for the products, Abdi said.

"A lot of my friends are very shy, so going to the nurse's office and asking for a period product was kind of nerve-wracking for them," Abdi said. "It'd be very convenient for us to be placed in the bathroom instead of the nurse's office."

Abdi said many students can't bring products from home because they don't have them. Some of her friends only get products from nonprofits like Planned Parenthood, and it can be hard to make the trip every time they need them.

"Sometimes you're running late to school; like no one really plans when their period is coming," Abdi said. "Even if you have the app to follow it, sometimes it's just a uterus doing what it wants. So sometimes there's no time to stop by a nonprofit organization or stop by a store to get something."

About half of U.S. states, not including Wisconsin, have laws requiring schools to provide free period products or provide state funding for the products, according to the Alliance for Period Supplies. The resolution from Zombor and Gokalgandhi would call for MPS to lobby state lawmakers to fund menstrual products for all Wisconsin schools.

In October, state Sen. Melissa Agard, D-Madison, introduced a bill that would have required public and voucher schools to provide free tampons and pads in all of their restrooms. It would have given school districts the authority to raise tax revenue by the same amount it spends on the products, if the local school board were to adopt a resolution to do so. The bill failed.

In analyzing Agard's bill, the state Department of Public Instruction said it couldn't estimate the potential cost. It noted that period products generally cost an individual about $70 per year, but noted that schools could likely obtain products more cheaply with bulk orders. The department also couldn't estimate how many students would use the products or how much it might cost to install dispensers.

Milwaukee wouldn't be the first district to try a bathroom-stocking program of its own.

After student advocacy in Madison, the Madison Metropolitan School District budgeted $200,000 in 2021-22 to roll out free period products in bathrooms.

A spokesperson for the district said free dispensers have been fully installed in all middle school women's and all-gender bathrooms and locker rooms, and are almost entirely installed in high school bathrooms, with elementary schools coming next. The spokesperson said dispensers are supposed to be restocked each evening by custodians.

Jade Koenigs, manager of the Girls Inc. organization that works with students at Madison East High School, said unfortunately the dispensers are often empty, sometimes going weeks unstocked, according to what she hears from students.

Madison East students ran a donation drive this year that collected 9,500 period products to distribute at school, Koenigs said. They're also working with an engineering company, Cummins, to design a dispenser that will be able to distribute a range of products, rather than just one size of tampons and one size of pads.

"My high schoolers put it amazingly," Koenigs said. "They're like, 'We're high schoolers, we shouldn't be doing this, but if we don't do it then no one's going to.'"

Contact Rory Linnane at rory.linnane@jrn.com. Follow her on X (Twitter) at @RoryLinnane. 

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: MPS to pilot free period product dispensers in Milwaukee school bathrooms