AUGUSTA - Rep. Kristen Cloutier, D-Lewiston, introduced legislation Tuesday before the Legislature's Education and Cultural Affairs Committee that would require public schools serving sixth through 12th grades to provide menstrual products to students in school bathrooms.
"Mainers living on lower incomes who menstruate often struggle with the inability to afford sufficient menstrual products," said Cloutier. "Unfortunately, period poverty is a very real and very common problem in our state. Some students choose not to attend school at all when they are menstruating due to the limitations of menstrual products available to them. We have created a system where a lack of access to menstrual products presents a lack of access to educational opportunities, and this legislation would help change that."
LD 348 would require that menstrual products be available in bathrooms and provide ongoing General Fund appropriations of $564,059 in fiscal year 2023-24 and $272,999 in fiscal year 2024-25 to create Maines Menstrual Products Reimbursement Program, which would reimburse public schools at 90% of the cost of making menstrual products available to students.
The Education and Cultural Affairs Committee will hold a work session on the bill in the coming weeks.
Cloutier is the assistant House majority leader and is currently serving her third term in the Maine House of Representatives. She represents House District 94, which includes part of her hometown of Lewiston.
Contact:
Brian Lee [Cloutier], 305-965-2744