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.
This ain't no upwardly mobile freeway.
Why not? It's accurate and a perfect description.
In answer to your question. I’m a girl, older now... well way older now, and we solved the issue by carrying extras in our purse. Problem solved. And not to get too graphic, they were not packaged in little pretty pink wrappers either. Kleenex worked just fine for wrapping purposes. In an emergency one went to the school nurse. Good planning made that unnecessary. How in God’s name will these precious little snowflakes make it in the big bad world. I know the answer, the question was merely rhetorical. You can’t fix stupid.
My previous answer and your comment covers the issue and solves the problem. Our country is in a sad state.
We were in the age of pioneers. Independent, responsible, problem solving young women. :)
LOLOLOLOL
Well they could clean the bathrooms to defray cost, but first they have to be taught how and bathroom cleaning plays hell on acrylic nails I hear.
So, sounds like you and the women had common sense ways of handling the problem. A little common sense can go a long way towards dealing with life’s issues. I know from my wife that sometimes cycles can be unpredictable. But still it is not a huge public health emergency, which seems to be how the New York schools are framing the issue.
In our local schools (attended by my friends’ children, not mine) students are not allowed to carry bags or purses. Therefore, a girl who needs a pad has to hope she has time to get to her locker between classes, walk through the halls with a pad in her hand, then get a turn in the bathroom before the next class ... or make a big deal about leaving class to visit the nurse.
It’s insane.
I could have gone all day without giving thought to the bleeding vaginas of the underclass.
It’s times like this that I miss my grandma and her understated restraint.
Are you kidding? You would be hit with the "RACIST!" label in 3 milliseconds. They can't possibly use their delicate hands to clean bathrooms. L-rd, you should have seen what I had to touch to pay for MY college.
You don't have that luxury, white boy. It's your job to PAY for those well-used anatomical miracles.
NYC public schools have become a “service academy” for the welfare rolls and prisons.
They have also been servant centers, with the teachers acting as servants to wait upon their fickle students and cajole, beg, bribe them to want to learn. I hear conversations between a guidance counselor and a student at an alternative last-chance high school: "Why did you skip 156 classes last year, Tryshawnia?" "I dint feel like going to school." "Why not?" "It was boring."
Her welfare benefits did not lessen. She got plenty of food, sex, drugs, whatever she wanted, at our expense. Why ruin it all by studying and maybe getting out of high school to a world beyond, where hot breakfast is NOT brought to your classroom, you actually have to get off your fat a@@ and earn money, you can't call superiors by their first name, you have to produce real work and not "portfolios", and if you fail to produce, you don't get to repeat, you are fired? These ridiculous libtard schools do everything they can to get aboard the "everybody wins a trophy for something" train, there are no consequences for bad behavior or failure to produce, only the teachers are at fault.
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