Students across the Kamloops-Thompson School District will have better access to free menstrual products moving forward.

The province now requires that all students have access to these products by the end of the year.

But SD73 Director of Instruction and Learning Services Trish Smillie says students in the district have already been able to ask for these products, if they need it.

“We receive these products from several companies for free,” she said. “With the new ministerial order though, this will create more consistently available products in the washrooms in our schools.”

“We are very much looking forward to that.”

At the moment, the school board is waiting for more details from the province on how to implement the directive.

“Waiting for details on the logistics of how to have these things installed, how to create further equity around the types of products that will be providing,” added Smillie.

“We don’t know at this point, what type of a grant we’ll be receiving from the government.”

Education Minister Rob Fleming announced $300,000 to cover start up costs for school districts as well as ongoing funding for the program last week.

Smillie says in SD73, officials will see how things will work over the next year with this provincial mandate.

“So as we start regularly stocking these products, we’ll be determining what kind of inventory we need to make sure we have on hand,” she noted. “Right now access is through the schools, so we’ll do that on a district level to make sure we can stock these products appropriately.”

“Following that, we’ll make sure our installations are in place, to be ready to go for the time we’re able to with everything we need to do.”

 

The province-wide program is the first of its kind in Canada and comes after school board trustees in New Westminster, voted in February to provide free feminine hygiene products in washrooms.