Let's face it, Knox County School students need access to period products while they are at school. Over 12% of Knox County is under the poverty line and this means that a lot of the girls at our schools struggle to get proper access to period products. This is often known as ‘Period Poverty’ and it can lead to lower confidence and disruptions to a girl’s education. Period Products are just as essential as having toilet paper and it's unacceptable that we are not treating it this way. If we look at the data from the Period Project, we can see how important it is for period products to be on standby for student, 84% of students reported having missed class due to lack of accesses to period products or know someone who has.

At West High School, there has been an initiative to provide free period products on campus. Students bring boxes of period products and readily fill up baskets nailed into the bathrooms to share with the rest of the school​. While the initiative is successful, it is hard for students to be responsible for constantly filling up and being responsible for a bathroom necessity- it should be handled by the school district. 

 In my personal experience, I’ve seen girls have to frantically try to find someone who has a period product or see if the nurse has any in their office. This is extremely inconvenient and cuts their class time when they should just be able to get one from the bathroom. It should not be a burden for a student to feel this way. Providing free period products in our schools will raise the county’s educational outcomes for every FEMALE demographic, destigmatize menstruation, and encourage other entities in the county and across the state to do the same.

Please sign this petition if you believe that Knox County Schools should consider making period products in their girl's bathrooms! 

Read about the Aunt Flow Initiative: https://goauntflow.com/schools/