Posted on 03/14/2016 9:25:08 AM PDT by EinNYC
For the first time ever, city schools are dispensing free tampons and pads to students.
Girls at 25 public schools will get the items from bathroom dispensers in a program that starts Monday, the Daily News has learned.
The push for free feminine hygiene products will reach roughly 11,600 students when it is fully implemented by March 31, Education Department officials said.
The goal is to help female students focus on learning and feel comfortable during class, said Deputy Schools Chancellor Elizabeth Rose, who’s helping to manage the project.
“Having easy access to feminine care products is essential,” Rose said. “This pilot marks a major step in providing additional resources to students in need.”
Education Department officials said the program could be expanded to more middle schools and high schools citywide, depending on how well it’s received.
The idea for the new program came from City Councilwoman Julissa Ferreras-Copeland (D-Queens), who had a stand-alone bathroom dispenser with free tampons and pads installed at the Queens High School for Arts and Business last year.
After students and staffers raved about the benefits of the free tampons and sanitary napkins, such as fewer classroom emergencies, Ferreras-Copeland sought to expand the effort.
She worked with the Education Department to select two districts for the expansion, choosing to bring the dispensers to all middle schools and high schools in District 24 in Queens and District 9 in the Bronx.
“Girls in these districts face the greatest financial hardships,” Ferreras-Copeland said. “I want to ensure none of them lose class time, face illness or feel humiliated because their family cannot afford pads.”
The city currently has no mandate for public schools to provide feminine hygiene products. But many schools carry them and they are often distributed by school nurses.
Arts and Business High School sophomore Ashley Celik said bathroom dispensers are a far better solution.
“You feel more confident and don’t feel as nervous,” said Ashley, 15. “You can just grab it whenever you need it. It’s there for you.”
Education Department officials said the program will carry a price tag of roughly $160,000 this year.
“Free” to the gimmedats and the parasites. But not free to the taxpayers.
#3 >“Free” to the gimmedats and the parasites. But not free to the taxpayers.<
My thought exactly.
Will young men get beer and cigarettes?
It’s comforting to know that when a guy who identifies as a girl can get tampons when he goes into the girl’s room.
#2 lazamataz continues his classless and irrelevant posts, so tiresome...
You hear a story like this, and it makes you wonder: how did the girls in the past survive without free feminine hygiene products handed out in school? Is this really a huge issue?
I’m male so don’t have personal experience e with this. But still wonder, is this really a huge public health emergency for girls in school???
-—The goal is to help female students focus on learning and feel comfortable during class,...-—
That may be the goal, but the purpose is to reinforce that all-important entitlement mentality so that come graduation, they’ll fit right in to the ‘gimmedat’ culture.
Another Satisfied Customer!™
In high school I just brought mine from home...
It never accured to me to let the thought of them effect my learning ability...
Is that gene missing in the girls nowadays ???
What ELSE is the city going to pay for, so negligent parents don’t have to? They already give the students breakfast, lunch, summer meals, condoms, etc.
But don’t you dare call them government-plantation slaves.
Food and diapers?
Whom do they these kids are?
The food stamps are for the casinos, so you can’t expect them to waste them on food and personal hygiene products.
Sounds like a Title IX violation to me.
Journalistic malpractice, again.
They are not free. Your family, friends, neighbors and strangers who pay taxes paid for those products.
Every morning, they will empty the dispensers...taking as much as they can, even to bring some home to momma and the black market.
A small lesson in what ‘free stuff’ means.
Free?? I want all the nickels I pumped into those damn machines back in the 60’s.
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