Pads and tampons are as necessary in school bathrooms as toilet paper and soap, say the backers of a legislative proposal to provide such products to students from fourth grade on up.
The bill, reviewed Wednesday by a House education committee, would require school districts to supply bathrooms with menstrual products by the start of the academic year this fall.
Rep. Sandra Feist, DFL-New Brighton, who sponsored the bill, argues in part that students experiencing "period poverty" regularly opt to skip class when they don't have access to menstrual products, which hurts their academic performance.
She's asking lawmakers to provide about $2 per pupil for the products, which puts the legislation's price tag in the neighborhood of $2 million.
"Helping students who regularly miss school stay in class is a wise investment. Chronic absenteeism costs a lot more than free period products," Feist said during the hearing before the House Education Policy Committee.
She began working on the bill two years ago when a freshman at Hopkins High School told her about the issues students face when they don't have menstrual products readily available.
That student, Elif Ozturk, told committee members Wednesday that some of her friends and classmates routinely stay home when they're running low on pads or tampons. Ozturk, who is now a junior, said that making those products available in school bathrooms would remove what is too often a barrier to their education.
"We cannot learn when we are leaking," Ozturk said.
