State law now requires schools to provide free menstrual products to students, making it easier for students to focus on success

Angeli Cazares is a 17-year-old who loves being outdoors in nature, wearing her hair with purple highlights, and going to skate parks. She is a gifted and talented student and graduated from Denver North High School in three years.

Besides the fast pace at which she could study, high school had another advantage: when she went to the bathroom, she saw a dispenser full of feminine hygiene products.

“They started offering it in mid-2021, and by the time I started going to the restrooms in 2022, they had them in all the restrooms, which was a really great help,” Cazares said. “A lot of times, my periods are super irregular, so I usually get them without even knowing or without any kind of warning… One time, I randomly got it at school and I was so confused, I was super anxious. I didn’t want to ask anyone, just out of that self-conscious shame. So I went to the restroom and I saw them there and I was so relieved.”

Her school is one of dozens of schools and districts in Colorado that are already rolling out free pads and tampons in girls’ bathrooms and gender-neutral bathrooms in high schools, joining nine others across the country.

The fear of going to school and risking an accident, the worry of having to choose between buying school meals and the products students need to participate in after-school sports activities, will not deter her and other students in Colorado much longer.

In June, Governor Polis signed HB24-1164, the Free Menstrual Products for Students measure, into law. It requires schools to provide menstrual products for free in their bathrooms. Some schools, like Cazares’, have recently started providing products, while other schools in Colorado will do so in the coming months and years. By 2025, a quarter of all schools should have them; all schools should have them by 2028.

There is a separate bill that gives schools the opportunity to purchase menstrual products.

In addition to Colorado, nine other states have both a requirement and funding dollars available to place the free menstrual products in schools, according to the nonprofit Alliance for Period Supplies. They are California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio and Oregon.

In Colorado, there is some funding for the new law’s implementation: During the 2022-2023 school year, the Menstrual Hygiene Products Accessibility Grant Program gave schools with large numbers of students eligible for free or reduced lunches up to $4,200 to sell the products, according to a report from the Colorado Department of Education.

Nebraska is also running a pilot program for the 2025-2026 school year, while other states are mandating menstrual products in schools without setting aside money to provide them. These include Delaware, Illinois, New Hampshire, New York, Nevada, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington, and the District of Columbia.

Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite

Access to hygiene products has become the core of the nonprofit Justice Necessary, which works to combat what founder Diane Cushman Neal calls hygiene poverty: the inability to afford or obtain everyday hygiene products. She spent hours lobbying state lawmaker Rep. Brianna Titone, educated herself on the problem, commissioned an investigation and spent up to 50 hours a week bringing energy and attention to the issue, which she turned into a seven-day-a-week job during the pandemic. Titone was one of four women in the state legislature who sponsored the bill that eventually became law that required the products in schools.

“I really believe that we need to provide hygiene products so that we can see (those around us) become their best selves,” Cushman Neal said. “That’s how they get a job; that’s how they go to school. That’s how they have a fulfilling life.”

Numerous studies (including some from Justice Necessary in 2022 and 2024 with small samples, but also larger ones) have found that period poverty is widespread. The age at which a person gets their first period is decreasing, people are missing out on experiences because they don’t have the sanitary pads they need, and people of color are getting their periods earlier than adolescents, which means they need menstrual products sooner.

A 2021 online survey of 1,000 menstruating college students ages 13 to 19, called “State of The Period 2021: The Widespread Impact of Period Poverty on US Students,” found that nearly a quarter of Hispanic students had to choose between buying clothes and food, and nearly half of Black and Latino students feel like they can’t do their best schoolwork because of lack of access to menstrual products. That’s compared to 28 percent of white students.

The law has been largely welcomed. The International Sanitary Supply Association said in a statement that it “recognizes public policy and continues to advocate for free access to menstrual products in schools.”

But not all organizations are in favor of the new law. The Colorado Rural Schools Alliance is one of the few organizations speaking out against the new law. In a statement, executive director Michelle Murphy said they oppose the law “because rural districts and schools already provide free menstrual products to students, and we were concerned that the law would create unfunded mandates that would drain rural districts’ resources in both financial and human capital.”

Cazares, the student advocate, said the menstrual products have given her one less thing to worry about now that she’s finished high school.

She’s going to attend Community College of Aurora. After that, she’d like to transfer to the University of Northern Colorado to get a bachelor’s degree in political science with a minor in Chicano studies. Maybe in the future, she’ll be able to do advocacy work on an issue, like she and her friends did in this case.

“A lot of my colleagues were the ones who were really focused on the advocacy side, so they were more on the media side of things, and I was more in the background, but supporting them and their ideas and perspectives was my part of the advocacy in this regard,” Cazares said.

Heart of Denburg/CPR News

Before attending Denver North, she attended Denver Montessori Junior/Senior High School, which did not provide menstrual supplies. “I had to bring my own or the teachers would provide them, but it was out of their pocket, which shouldn’t have been the case.”

Some of her friends weren’t as lucky. “A lot of the people I used to go to school with who now go to other high schools always had so much stress and anxiety that they had to find their own products or a lot of my friends were on low incomes so they couldn’t afford the menstrual products or didn’t know what to use.”

Once she was in Denver North, it was easy to go to the bathroom to get a menstrual product. “They’re on a shelf, kind of like the ones you pay for in public restrooms, but they’re free,” she said, adding that the dispenser is clear plastic and seemed to hold about 100 products. “You’d pull one out of the opening and the next one would fall out… There was one side that had tampons and the other side that just had pads.”

Cazares says she would like to see the program adopted by other schools and school districts.

By 2026, half of Colorado schools are expected to offer menstrual products, and by June 30, 2028, all local educational institutions will be required to do so. Cazares is excited about this.

“I hope other girls can experience this relief too,” she said.