Ravenna, 27 December 2022 – The ‘Nervi-Severini di Ravenna’ Art School it is the first in Italy to institute menstrual leave for women students who request it. Absences will not affect the maximum limit allowed.
Menstrual leave at school (stock photo)
“Probably – explains the director of the institute – Gianluca Dradi – for a school it is the first initiative of this kind in Italy”.
The resolution with which the ‘Nervi-Severini’ school council launched the initiative was published in the school’s online bulletin board in recent days. Recognizes female students who suffer from dysmenorrhea (menstrual pain, ed), the possibility of be absent for a maximum of two days per month without this absence being calculated among those that must be considered for the validity of the school year.
In fact, article 14 of Presidential Decree 122/2009 provides that students must attend at least three quarters of the annual timetable in order to be admitted to the ballots: consequently, one quarter of the annual timetable is the maximum number of possible absences for the validity of the school year.
However, the law allows schools to be able to identify exceptions to this limit for justified and documented absences. As a rule, in all schools, for example, absence due to certified illnesses is foreseen as a derogation. The representatives of the student component in the ‘Nervi-Severini’ school council pointed out how many girls suffer from menstrual cramps so strong as to interfere with carrying out of normal activities, collecting in this regard 16 testimonies of their companions. They therefore asked to apply in the school, in analogy with the institution of menstrual leave now regulated in Spain, a form of facilitation for the absences that this condition can determine.
The principal: “It’s a democratic initiative”
“The promotion of citizenship skillswhich constitutes one of the educational objectives of the schools, also passes through the acknowledgment of the legitimate requests of the students who are put in a position to ascertain how problems can be managed through a democratic process which takes place within the collegial bodies”, always says Dradi, principal of the Ravenna high school which instituted menstrual leave.
According to the approved regulation, female students with certified dysmenorrhea will have the “ability to produce only one medical certificate per yearcertifying said syndrome, in order to be recognized up to two days a month as exceptions to the frequency constraint of at least three quarters of the personalized annual timetable, absences which therefore do not affect the maximum number of hours of those allowed for the purposes of the validity of the school year, without prejudice to the need for the presentation of the justification of the parents (or of the adult students), by means of a web booklet”.
The Ravenna high school directed by Dradi has already established the regulation for thecarriere alias‘, i.e. the possibility of adopting a preferred name for transgender students. A few years ago, he also caused a sensation for the way in which he reacted to an inscription written on a school wall (‘the principal is gay): “through these regulations – he said – we communicate to male and female students that the school recognizes their problems and their needs and intends, as far as possible, to address them in order to create a welcoming and inclusive environment”.