On December 3, 2020, the Montgomery County Board of Education passed legislation to install menstrual product dispensers in elementary, middle, and high school bathrooms; the project was to be completed by October 2025. However, students have yet to see legitimate action on these plans.
The 44th Student Member of the Board of Education, Hana O’Looney, was sworn in for the 2021-2022 school year; she won 78.3 percent of the vote. Mainly focusing on menstrual equity in schools and equal opportunity for all teachers and students county-wide, O’Looney eventually helped pass the legislation that would add free menstrual product dispensers into school bathrooms. This legislation was on track to have at least two dispensers installed in every MCPS middle and high school over the summer of 2022 and one installed in every elementary school by October 2022.
The installation was completed in late September 2022; the then-superintendent of MCPS said, “Beginning with the 2022-2023 school year, building service managers will order menstrual products for the newly installed dispensers.” However, as of November 2024, these dispensers are consistently empty.
Pranav Karthikeyan, a senior at Poolesville High School, is working with a team of three other students in Montgomery County to develop a tool for students in the county to report any issues they notice. With the new software, “Ripple,” students will be able to scan a QR code that brings them to a website that automatically files and sends a report to the building services, allowing them to work on fixing that facility as quickly and efficiently as possible. Karthikeyan said, “We have built out this really powerful data analytics system which will attempt to find patterns and help streamline services in schools. If restock cycles in bathrooms are every three weeks at a school but products consistently go out of stock within two weeks, the software will be able to highlight process issues like this and communicate it to staff.” This app may be a huge step toward bridging the communication gap between MCPS students and administrators. Karthikeyan said, “We hope to increase the equity in legislation with the restocking of menstrual products in bathrooms, ensuring that students who faced issues with the policy before can now have their voices raised and action taken upon.”
By early 2025, trials for “Ripple” will be up and running in a few MCPS middle and high schools. It may be a few months before the app reaches B-CC, but students should be hopeful that this new software will change the game for communication between students and administrators in MCPS, raising student voices and making school a safer space for all B-CC students.
