Free Pads & Tampons Are Supposed To Be Available In Schools. So Where Are They?

When Alisa Nudar needed a tampon unexpectedly in math class during her junior year at Bard High School Early College Queens, she was left with only a few options: Should she try to create a makeshift product? Skip the rest of the day and head home? Ultimately, she found a friend who could run and grab a menstrual product from her locker (making both of them miss class).

Nudar’s experience is shared by so many young people in the US today. Twenty-one states have no law requiring that public schools provide menstrual products to their students. Of the 29 that supposedly do — like New York — how many are really following through? How many are even telling students about the mandate? At an oversight hearing (to review and monitor the implementation of legislation) in NYC on September 18, 2023, Nudar testified, “I did not know period products were supposed to be distributed for free in school.”

If a public school were not required to provide toilet paper or hand soap to its students, the public would rightly be up in arms. But because menstrual products are shrouded in stigma and institutional ignorance, menstruating students continue to suffer the consequences. As the legal director at Period Law — the only national legal and policy nonprofit in the country dedicated to fighting for menstrual equity — I get to help craft, advance and advocate for policies that honor people who menstruate. 

Today, 29 states mandate free menstrual products in some capacity in schools, with four states enacting laws within the past year. It’s extremely sound policy: Research shows that one in three menstruating teens struggle to pay for period products, and 84% of students have either missed class or know someone who has missed class because they did not have access to period products. The inability to afford menstrual products leads to unsanitary practices and health issues from reusing old products or creating makeshift ones.

When schools provide free menstrual products to their students, not only do they cut down on absenteeism, they combat the depression and anxiety associated with period poverty. Free, easy access to menstrual products is a matter of gender equality. Laws mandating free access ensure that all students, regardless of socioeconomic status, have the resources to manage their periods with dignity.

Period Law is based in New York City, the first jurisdiction to mandate free products in schools — even before the state of New York followed suit. The legislation had a strong infrastructure and many vocal champions. But since its passage in 2016, there have been whispers around New York City that something isn’t working. Where are the products? Nudar did not know that period products should have been freely available in her school’s bathrooms for the past seven years — she had never seen them. 

It’s not just New York. Matteson Epstein, an intern at Period Law and a senior at Marlborough School in Hancock Park, CA (a private school where menstrual products by the organic brand August are freely available) studied the placement of menstrual products in Los Angeles schools last summer with the Coro Foundation. She surveyed over 110 students from public, private, charter and magnet schools.

Since 2021, California’s AB367 has mandated that grades 6-12, California State University and community colleges have at least one central location to supply menstrual products. Public schools are to provide products in all women's restrooms, all-gender restrooms and in at least one men's restroom. Public schools that have a 40% pupil poverty rate or above are expected to stock at least 50% of the school's restrooms. Yet Epstein’s survey found that over 30% of eligible students reported their restrooms are not regularly stocked. 

Are students who were promised free menstrual products in their schools actually receiving them? Or, like they did for Nudar, are the policies that were supposed to bolster and protect the dignity of menstruating students falling short?

We went to find out.

With the help of NYU Law School’s Reproductive Justice Clinic, Period Law submitted over 20 Freedom of Information Act requests to Departments of Education (DOE) around the country where free menstrual products are currently mandated in public schools. Our requests entitled us to internal records, agreements and communications surrounding menstrual products and dispensers — everything from budgeting, procurement and distribution to education and legal compliance.

The results have been pouring in. Period Law is working on a State of the Union of sorts, examining via these public records how access laws are being implemented, and how the enacting statute could have been more effectively drafted to make them work better. 

What we’ve learned so far is that the laws leave a lot of unanswered questions that schools — already overburdened and underfunded — have to figure out on their own. In New York state, an Albany administrator was left to field questions about trans inclusivity, since no clear guidance could be found in the legislation itself.

Meanwhile, the mandate for menstrual products in school restrooms in Virginia didn’t earmark any additional funding to make it possible. So is it any wonder that a director of operations there emailed a colleague asking if they really had to comply with the new law? The flip side of this can be found in Missouri, where the distribution program shows promising evolution. Based on community feedback provided by school staff, the funding mandated by law was expanded to cover more than just pads and tampons. School nurses can now buy storage cabinets and Midol, among other items.

Compliance with any new legislation can be arduous. A 2016 order sheet out of New York City, for instance, shows that orders were placed for hundreds of menstrual product dispensers. Anecdotally, Period Law heard that these dispensers often did not work or fit the products being stocked. Many were vandalized.

These types of growing pains are to be expected yet no comparable order sheet for dispensers between 2017 and 2024 was shared, so how was the problem rectified? Of course, states will continue to perfect their systems the longer these laws are in place. The North Carolina DOE reports annually to the general assembly on who has received a menstrual product grant, for how much, what they purchased, plus testimonials from students and teachers. This transparency led advocates to realize that more schools wanted products than the state was able to provide.

It's important to know what access laws around the country really look like. In August, Fox News host Jesse Watters said on his show that Minnesota Governor and VP candidate Tim Walz "forced schools to stock tampons in boys’ bathrooms. Tampons in fourth grade boys’ bathrooms. What a freak. What do boys need tampons for?” Besides being rude — not all people who menstruate are women and not all women menstruate — Watters was wrong. Minnesota’s law, which went into effect just this past January, simply requires products “be available to all menstruating students in restrooms regularly used by students in grades 4 to 12 according to a plan developed by the school district.”

As a lawyer who has now read a lot of these laws, this one is written in a particularly helpful and inclusive way. It allows school administrators to implement the law effectively for their school, and not risk running afoul of gendered limits. But it doesn't mandate much of anything except that menstruating students have access to products.

Other positive aspects of the Minnesota law are that it begins in fourth grade (others tend to start in sixth or even high school, excluding the outlier students who start menstruating early and are probably most in need of products unexpectedly) and that the program is fully funded. Tampon Tim indeed!

We found that three components make a piece of access legislation more likely to be well implemented: a clear funding mechanism, explicit delineation of responsibilities, and an enforcement or reporting mechanism. 

Watchdogging of this type works. In the fall of 2023, when Period Law helped organize the oversight hearing in NYC with Alisa Nudar, the DOE administrators that showed up didn't have any valuable data to present on how they were complying with the law. They actually left the room before Nudar testified to her inadequate experience with the 2016 mandate. In response, New York City updated its directive: The DOE is now required to provide free products in restrooms beginning in fourth grade instead of sixth, report annually on the products being supplied to students, and develop educational materials in collaboration with the city’s Commission on Gender Equity. 

Period Law will continue to monitor implementation and oversight of these life-changing laws. We are still very much considering a lawsuit to compel NYC to enforce its own laws if we do not see quick and effective change. Please consider supporting our work to make sure that period product access legislation is enforced in all 29 states, and gets written, passed and enforced correctly in the 21 others.