The stress of the fast-paced daily high school life can be a lot to manage sometimes. So when it comes to the half of students who get the pleasure of navigating high school on their period every month, they deserve all the support they can get. But up until recently, even accessing pads and tampons at The Village School was a hassle, requiring a journey all the way to the nurse’s office, unless you got lucky and a classmate had one off-hand. So when the announcement was made in early October of 2024 that The Village School’s Student Support Suite would now be offering a plethora of feminine hygiene products and other services for that time of the month, it was clear that this community was taking steps in the right direction.
On October 15th, 2024, the announcement officially went out that the Student Support Suite, located on the first floor of D-Building near the cafeteria, would now be offering students a variety of period products, which they could come down to get at any time. This includes pads, panty liners, tampons, heated water bottles, and more notably, changes of underwear in a variety of different sizes ranging from XS to Ld. This development aims not only to provide students with the feminine hygiene products they need but to look out for them and make female students’ lives a bit easier.
“I wanted to provide a corner that offered a variety of things that we need as young women when it comes to feminine care.” says The Village School’s Social Emotional Counselor and head of the Student Support Suite, Rayla Willis. “It’s not just tampons and pads, it’s things that are needed for a young lady to feel confident and supported in a setting where an accident can happen, especially when students can’t always get to the nurse in time.”
“I attended the University of Oklahoma, we have a huge sister circle,” says Willis, talking about remembering how important it is to have a female support network in your community. “I just put out an Amazon wishlist to our sister circle, I said ‘ I’d really like to start this.’, and, you know, the products came flowing that day. And that’s how it got started.”
(Eshani Gale)
Although this development is welcomed by the student body, many students were left wondering why female hygiene products weren’t simply just available in female bathrooms around the school, similar to restrooms in The Village Middle School. “So, the reason why they stopped putting them in there is because people were abusing the products,” Willis says. “They ended up in various places, not being utilized.” Willis didn’t want the products the community offers to go to waste, but still believes they should be as accessible to students as possible, which is another reason why she wanted to make this expansion to the Support Suite.
This development is not just a way to ensure female students have access to the products they need, but to ensure that they feel comfortable and supported in their lives at The Village School. Students should know that the Student Support Suite is a place they can go whenever they need a moment for their wellbeing, and feminine care is an important part of that wellbeing.
