The fight to free the tampon is ongoing and seems to have no end.  The whole movement to get free menstrual products in female and unisex bathrooms in all schools from elementary schools to high schools has been on going since 2018 when New York put the first free dispenser in their bathrooms.  Since then it has spread throughout the country, and in March of 2022 Utah legislation passed a bill requiring that by 2025 all schools under Utah control should have the budget for free menstrual products in all female and unisex bathrooms from K-12.  This bill will start on July 1st, 2022. 

While this is a huge improvement for Utah schools, they still lag behind others as the debate on reproductive rights in Utah is extremely controversial. This bill will help anyone who menstruates which is 1 out of 4 students. This will also help the fact that those who menstruate are often pushed behind their peers who do not. According to a study done by The Free Tampon Movement, 4 out of 5 teens report that they have or they know someone who had missed school due to lack of access to period products.

The states who provide state funding are Alabama, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, Missouri, and North Carolina.  The states that require period products in school but do not provide funding are Delaware, District of Columbia, Illinois, Maine, New Hampshire, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Utah, Virginia and Washington. This puts a lot of pressure on the schools who do not have the funding for period products but have the requirement for the state to provide them. Utah is one of these states that have a requirement but no state funding, they did this by setting a goal by July 1st, 2025 all schools must find funding in their budget to provide, Skyline being a well funded school we are one of those who have dispensers in the bathroom.  

After interviewing 2 teachers at Skyline, this is what they had to say.  Chris Krueger (Big Krueger) who has a PHD in political science says that “I’m against Utah not funding it, having said that we are talking nickels and dimes in the granite district’s budget.” While this stands true that there are more expensive things to fund, according to an article by NPR on free products in public schools, “Advocates working with the Office of Legislative Services in New Jersey are estimating the cost of the recent law requiring schools to provide period products to students in public schools at about $750,000 per year.” Later, talking to Anita Ardi, the AP Human Geography teacher, she stated that “It’s not surprising to me because of the number of times they give us laws and requirements they don’t give us the money to handle it, so I’m sadly not surprised but I think it’s ridiculous and it needs to be provided.” She added that “I think it’s about time.  We have way too many students who are under provided for and the expectation has been consistently that someone else is going to do it and if we have students in our building during the school day it is our responsibility to take care of them.”  This is a huge improvement for most kids going from having student provided period products to free ones in the bathroom.