^ Of course! I just meant that it can hit lower income kids especially hard.
It’s embarrassing no matter what your income level 
My daughter’s NYC private school already has free tampons, for the record. There are dispensers in the bathrooms that don’t need coins. They also have free toilet paper.
I assume this is covered by tuition, not taxes.
Given that NYC public schools have a lot of kids poor enough to get free lunches and otherwise are not exactly rolling in dough, it is kind of hard to compare it to a private school, which in NYC generally have tuitions that are often more than the family income these kids come from (leaving out parochial schools, that likely could get funding for something like this since they educate a lot of less well off kids), the tuition at grade school level is probably close to 30k now, the high schools are almost college tuition levels at the elite level, so I doubt many of the kids at those schools have to worry about buying tampons and such. Though it is also a nice touch even if they can afford it, if their menses happen to start unexpectedly while at school it is kind of nice they can have this. Of course, I am sure Miami figures this money must be coming out of her tax dollars, when the money for NYC school systems is mostly paid for by NY tax dollars, even the federal money they are getting back likely is covered by the taxes NY sends into the government, since NY gets about 65c on the dollar…
@MiamiDAP because free toilet paper totally breaks NYC budget too . . . maybe we need to go back to corn cobs in outdoor privies in the parks . . . .
For the record, NYC also provides year-round meals for lower income kids under age 18 in the schools. Year round. Free breakfasts too, because for so many kids this is the food they rely on. I’ve heard of some cafeteria workers helping kids get through the weekends by putting the extra food in their backpacks.
So. Yeah. Tampons and pads. It’s a nice thing to do.
And this is why we have individual state’s rights. Ohio is welcome to do whatever they want and leave us New Yorkers to muddle through the best we can.
If men menstruated these would have been free a century ago and come with a pretzel.
Can you image if you had to always remember to pack a roll of toilet paper whenever you left the house because it wasn’t included in public restrooms?
I’m lucky if I make it out of the house with pants…
When I worked for an ipv shelter, we always begged for tampon donations. We never got them. Since the shelter literally had no money, most of the time we, the workers, brought them in for the residents. None of us could really afford it either but we weren’t going to let their lives be any more disrupted and painful than they already were.
This is a good idea as long as the dispensors are not abused and the tampons and pads are not used as toys or for pranks or some other wasteful reason. Free things tend to be wasted.
I totally support this, as a NYC resident and taxpayer. I hope they are kept in a nurse’s office or someplace safe. Having gone through NYC public schools and having my kids attend in recent years, including having a D who is a teacher in one now, I can say that toilet paper and water in bathrooms are not always a given, so I hope kids who need them can be assured of receiving supplies.
YMMV depending on the individual concerned. Also, it isn’t only free things which tend to be wasted.
At one previous workplace in the financial services industry, I’ve actually had several colleagues and even a manager who earned high five and six figured salaries who replaced all their furniture, electronics, cars, household furnishings, etc every 3-6 months because that was the habit they inherited from their upper/upper-middle class families or because they felt they “deserved” it. All ended up falling heavily into debt despite earning great salaries which should have provided a comfortable middle/upper-middle class lifestyle assuming one wasn’t a spendthrift.
It got so bad they tried hitting up their fellow colleagues including yours truly for “loans”. The last straw was when a manager attempted to hit me up for a loan despite the fact this very request violated the firm’s conflict of interest rules vis a vis junior employees. Really sad considering industry norms for the salary accounting for his position and years of experience are definitely in the low-mid six figures. Reported him and he was sanctioned for the violation.
I wouldn’t put public school systems paying for necessities for basic hygiene and good health for half the population like tampons in the same category as wanton spending of those former colleagues.
I work in a low-income middle school. Our school nurse routinely gives away supplies but girls have to go and ask her for them. I would LOVE to see free pads/tampons in our schools! It would free up so much time spent by the girls going to the clinic and the nurse’s time would be better spent as well.
My realistic side asks how do you keep them from cleaning out the entire stash to take home, sell, etc?
Just thinking off the top of my head but how about dispenser that work on tokens instead of coins? Might be a way to make them freely available without a nurse dispensing nor a “free grab” basket setup.
Of course, if there were freebies everywhere like TP, maybe people wouldn’t feel the need to take and sell. Do people steal TP that often?
@TatinG because that neeeever happens with toilet paper or anything else that kids touch.
@zoosermom they are supposed to be in the bathrooms. My daughter said that the machines as of today were installed but remain empty . . … we will see!
The principal of her school reported to me over the summer (when I was in volunteering) that the installation of the machines was on schedule and that it was one of many many things that she had to do that summer, that her school counting the parent community was the size of a city. And when I did the math, I realized it in fact is the size of a small city. And that she must have a huge load to manage. She does it with aplomb, may I add.
Dusty feathers, I don’t think being in the bathroom will be practical in many schools. It would be nice if it worked that way, but often getting supplies from the nurse allows the student to use the staff bathroom which has such luxuries as water and toilet paper. It really is unfortunate how bad the condition of the restrooms is at many schools.
@zoosermom Well! Be that as it may, they are in the bathrooms currently! to my mind if you’re navigating 8 floors of a high school with 2700 rambunctious kids, it’s a long slog to the nurse and I’d be grateful to have them in the restrooms. No situation is perfect, but yours is a nice thought.
No, this isn’t my thought, it’s the circumstance I found myself in in the dark ages and my daughters recently! There were never functioning dispensers or toilet paper supplied. So it is either slog to the nurse or do without!
My kid’s private high school provided condoms in the bathroom.
However, I think they did cost a quarter, and I’m betting they were rarely purchased.