ConVal, Mascenic, Wilton-Lyndeborough, and Jaffrey-Rindge school districts rushed to begin the school year in compliance with SB 142, or the Period Poverty Bill, which Gov. Chris Sununu signed on July 18. The bill requires schools to stock free sanitary napkins and tampons in girls’ and gender-neutral restrooms in all public middle and high schools. The bill did not provide funds to execute the mandate.
The bill seeks to provide a more equitable learning environment for girls, particularly girls who might not be able to afford menstrual products. The organization, Free the Tampons, likens menstrual products to essentials like toilet paper and soap, which are required under the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
“This legislation is about equality and dignity,” Sununu said when he signed the bill. “SB 142 will help ensure young women in New Hampshire public schools will have the freedom to learn without disruption – and free of shame, or fear of stigma.”
All area school districts opted to install dispensers for the products, which, as ConVal Superintendent Kim Rizzo Saunders explained, are not coin-operated but are timer-controlled to prevent a user from emptying the whole machine all at once.
“I now know more about this than I ever wanted to,” said David Reilly, the facilities manager for Jaffrey-Rindge.
Reilly said on Sept. 16 that he had ordered vending machines for 25 bathrooms in the high school and middle school.
“They’ll arrive this week and we’ll get installing them. It’ll be a few months,” he said.
He has also ordered cases of pads and tampons to fill the machines. “We’ll see how they’re used.”
A representative from the Superintendent’s office at Jaffrey-Rindge said the district spent $4,875 on the initiative so far.
Reilly expressed frustration that the measure was an unfunded mandate, passed outside of budget season.
School Board chairman Stephen Spratt of Mascenic said he was proud that Mascenic had already installed their dispensers, but also wondered when the unfunded mandates would stop.
“We installed dispensers in all gender-neutral and ladies’ rooms in all the middle schools and high schools,” Saunders said. “That was to the tune of about $10,000.”
It’s too soon to know what the recurring costs will be, Saunders said. They will wait and see how many students take advantage of the service, she said.
The Ledger-Transcript was able to ask Sununu directly about the bill and the unfunded mandate aspect of it when he was in Peterborough Wednesday for the Governor and Executive Councilor meeting at the Peterborough Town House.
Sununu said it was an important bill to pass because it ensures young women are not deprived of opportunities. “How this was going to be funded was not one of the critical issues of whether we move forward with this or not.”
When asked specifically about the price incurred by ConVal, which is currently in a lawsuit with Sununu and the state over adequate funding for education, Sununu said, “If there are funding needs for one program or another within education, ConVal … can use the funds they currently have, down the road I’m sure there can be [other funding] opportunities opened up.”
Brian Lane, Superintendent of Wilton-Lyndeborough, said dispensers were installed prior to the first day of school in all the womens’ rooms, elementary through high school. The initiative has cost his school district $1,700 so far.
Linda Draper, administrative assistant to the principal of Wilton-Lyndeborough reported that they would have installed the dispensers sooner, but there were backorders due to the entire state trying to purchase the dispensers all at once.
None of the school district officials were aware of any plans of formal outreach to students about the new dispensers. And none reported any pushback from students or parents on the issue, although Draper said there have been incidents of middle schoolers treating the new installations like toys.
“It’s like free gumballs to them,” Draper said.
She said there have been a couple of incidents in which staff found still-wrapped products on the bathroom floor.
Saunders reported one issue in which, “for whatever reason,” a student had emptied a dispenser and threw all the products in the trash.
Community food banks are another local resource for obtaining menstrual products free of charge. Representatives from food pantries in Greenfield, Jaffrey, Greenville and Peterborough said they reliably stock menstrual products. The Antrim-Bennington and Wilton pantries stock menstrual products when they’re donated. Roger Ladouceur of Wilton said the Open Cupboard Food Panty provides gift cards to grocery stores when visitors request essentials they don’t regularly stock.