Meet the high schoolers who pushed Fort Worth schools to offer free menstrual pads
Fort Worth’s school district will offer free menstrual pads on middle and high school campuses starting next school year.
The change comes after advocacy from two high school students, who called on the district to offer period products for free.
Maya Perez, 16, and Olivia Castillo, 17, decided to push for free tampons and pads on district campuses through their work as co-presidents of the feminist club at Paschal High School. In early 2022, Perez and Castillo decided to host a period product drive to benefit a local women’s nonprofit, when they realized their classmates and peers were also burdened by paying for tampons and pads.
“This affects students in our district,” Perez, a sophomore, said. “Why isn’t this a school issue?”
Castillo and Perez started researching the issue, looking at states like California, where schools are required by state law to provide period products for free, as well as Dallas’ school system, where the district has agreed to offer period products for free after students advocated for change.
Castillo and Perez reached out to the student advocates in Dallas to learn from their experiences, and also contacted school nurses within the Fort Worth district to learn about students’ need for period products. Some nurses reported they were using personal money to keep their offices stocked with enough tampons and pads, Castillo said.
The co-presidents decided to bring the issue to the school board, and prepared statements to address the board at its February board meeting. After that, things moved quickly. Administrators who heard Castillo and Perez speak reached out to them for a meeting, and the students prepared a detailed presentation for them about a week later.
“The research is very clear: They were inexpensive. It shows a positive increase with attendance, and students don’t misuse it,” Castillo, a senior, said.
The district’s assistant superintendent of student support services, Michael Steinert, and Cherie Washington, the chief of student support services, both quickly responded to the girls’ case.
“Our daughters have had the same struggles that they’ve called out,” Washington said. “And so we were like, why not? We should have been doing this a long time ago.”
On Tuesday, the school board approved a $60,000 purchase of 200 dispensers. The district plans to begin installing them on some campuses in time for summer school, Steinert said. After a soft launch during summer classes, Steinert said, the district hopes to install at least two dispensers on every middle and high school campus in the district. Steinert said the pads will be included in the district’s annual operating budget moving forward.
“It becomes part of the operations budget for Fort Worth ISD just like paper towels and toilet paper,” Steinert said.
The dispensers will likely be placed in the most high trafficked girls’ bathrooms, he said. Pads will be available for free in the dispensers. The district does not currently plan to distribute tampons.
The students’ work is part of a broader push across the U.S. and the world to end “period poverty,” which refers to conditions when people can’t reliably access menstrual products or adequate period education. There has been limited research quantifying period poverty in the U.S., but one study that surveyed low-income women in St. Louis found that 64% of them said they couldn’t afford all of the menstrual supplies they need in a previous year. In addition to providing products in schools, activists have demanded access in jails, prisons, and other communal spaces.
Adequate supplies to manage a period is needed to prevent infections and rashes that could result from using unclean or uncomfortable makeshift pads. But period products also allow girls to menstruate more comfortably and without shame, and to avoid skipping classes or activities because they don’t have any supplies and don’t want to bleed into their clothes. Period supplies, like diapers, are purchases that are difficult to go without but can also be expensive for families to buy regularly when budgets are tight.
Period poverty activists are also pushing to end the application of the general sales tax on menstrual products in states like Texas. These groups have argued that, as a necessity, menstrual products should be treated like groceries and medicine, which are exempt from sales taxes.
Castillo and Perez said there are other goals they hope to accomplish with the feminist club. Eventually, they hope the district will offer tampons, as well as menstrual pads, to students. They also want to push the district to include dispensers in some men’s or non-binary bathrooms, for transgender boys and men, and students who are non-binary, who menstruate. The club is also working on sexual harassment public service announcement, highlighting the experiences of students who have been harassed while at school.
“I think feminist club has taught us that we can talk about issues. We can be like, ‘this is what’s wrong, help us fix it,’” Castillo said. “There are a lot of avenues to get your voice heard.”
This story was originally published April 27, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
