How period poverty is blocking girls from Arizona classrooms
Metro Creative Connection
Posted
The Issue:
Girls in Arizona’s underfunded schools are missing class due to lack of access to menstrual hygiene products — affecting attendance, confidence and academic achievement. Without access to free pads and tampons, many miss school or endure the day in discomfort and embarrassment.
The Stats:
One in 5 girls has missed school because they didn’t have access to period products. A 2023 Alliance for Period Supplies report found that 84% of teens have either missed class time or know someone who has because they didn’t have access to menstrual products. In Arizona, the organization has distributed more than 35,000 period packs — each containing tampons, pads and panty liners — to schools since 2018, yet thousands still go without.
The Solution:
Nonprofits like Alliance For Period Supplies are filling the gap — but advocates say it’s time for legislation to require free products in all schools and end the silence around menstruation.
In schools across Arizona, thousands of girls are missing class every month — not because they’re sick, but because they have their period and no access to products they need.
It’s called “period poverty,” and while it rarely shows up in school budgets or district planning documents, it’s a daily crisis for students in underfunded districts. Coupled with Arizona’s “tampon tax” or “pink tax” — the sales tax the state, county or city government collects on the retail purchase of menstrual products — basic hygiene products can be difficult to afford.
“When I was in junior high, I had friends try to make pads out of toilet paper if they couldn’t borrow one from a friend,” said Theresa Allen, a former student at a Title I middle school in Phoenix. “They’re ashamed to ask for help. And they shouldn’t be. If a school provides toilet paper for their students, why wouldn’t they provide tampons or pads?”
As of now, Arizona schools are not required to provide free menstrual hygiene products to students. That leaves many girls scrambling — missing school, sitting out gym, avoiding extracurriculars or struggling to focus during tests — because they don’t have access to basic necessities.
Nonprofits like Go With the Flow, The Alliance for Period Supplies and Diaper Bank are helping, but advocates say the state must step in.
“The goal is for period products to be available in all bathrooms — anywhere toilet paper, paper towels and soap are provided, there should be period products available,” said Lacey Gero, director of government relations at the National Diaper Bank Network and the Alliance for Period Supplies. “Arizona is also among the handful of states that still tax period products as luxury goods instead of basic necessities. Across the country, 32 states do not tax period products.”
A history of failed bills
Arizona has no mandate to provide free menstrual products — relying instead on donations, volunteers and overburdened school nurses.
In 2023, Senate Minority Leader Mitzi Epstein, D-Tempe, successfully sponsored a bill to establish a grants program for schools to provide free period products in school bathrooms.
“Because it was primarily a budget item, I was able to negotiate it into the budget and it did not have to be passed as a stand-alone bill.”
As a result, Arizona allocated $2 million in the Department of Education budget specifically for period products as part of Senate Bill 1720.
Known as the Feminine Hygiene Products Grant or Dot Project, this funding supports schools in providing menstrual products but does not establish a legal requirement for schools to do so.
“That program was enormously successful,” Epstein said. “My team and I had to work persistently to assure the schools would provide period products in the bathrooms, and not via the school nurse’s office. We had to explain that it takes too much time to walk two places, and that a tampon is not a bit of highly valuable gold.”
Building on these efforts, Senate Bill 1385 was introduced in 2025, proposing a $2.5 million allocation to the Arizona Department of Education to distribute funds to school districts and charter schools for providing feminine hygiene products in grades six to 12.As of now, it’s still progressing.
“It’s just a tampon,” Epstein said. “We do not ask boys to walk across campus to get some toilet paper from the football coach when they need it — and we should not ask girls to walk across campus for period products.”
Advocates emphasize the importance of such legislation in promoting menstrual equity and ensuring that individuals have access to necessary products in schools and public spaces.
“It would create a mandate that would require schools to provide products at no cost to students,” said Gero. “This bill would have kept schools providing products, which would support the one in four students who menstruate that experience period poverty (State of the Period). We know that without period products, these students are more likely to miss class and fall behind in school.”
“There is still a lot of stigma,” Gero said. “But that’s why we’re here — to meet the need, reduce the shame and make sure every student can show up to school with confidence.”
Solutions include funding free product dispensers in bathrooms, mandatory period product access in schools and broader education around menstruation to reduce stigma. But this will require cooperation from parents, schools and government.
For girls navigating adolescence, biology shouldn’t be a barrier to education. But in Arizona’s most vulnerable schools, a simple lack of pads and tampons continues to create challenges for their education.
Editor’s note:A grant from the Arizona Local News Foundation made this story possible. The foundation awarded 15 newsrooms to pay for solutions-focused education reporters for two years. Please send your comments to AzOpinions@iniusa.org. We are committed to publishing a wide variety of reader opinions, as long as they meet our Civility Guidelines.
By 
