Vandalism in the School Bathrooms

Vandalism+in+the+School+Bathrooms

Corbin Gustafson, Writer

In early September a challenge arose on TikTok called Devious Licks. The challenge encourages kids to steal and vandalize bathrooms and school property. The trend quickly took hold at our school with the bathrooms quickly getting vandalized.
“Yeah, I took part in the vandalism. I was just doing it because of the TikTok trend and because it was really funny,” said one student who claims to have vandalized the bathrooms and shared on condition of anonymity.
Almost every bathroom at the high school had something vandalized in it. The bathroom in the English hallway has one missing sink handle and a missing soap dispenser. The upstairs intersection bathroom has one soap dispenser missing. Lastly the history hallway bathroom has a broken stall lock and a sink missing both handles.
“I only took some of the light switches and I also peed in one of the soap dispensers,” the same student said.
This trend was getting kids in serious trouble. Kids thought it’d be funny to follow along with the TikTok trend; however, it’s not an easy thing to get away with and it landed them some pretty serious consequences.
“I’m aware of at least one student who was caught doing that and he’s now facing juvenile charges because of it,” said John Everett, the Marshfield High School resource officer. “I mean there’s cameras all over the school so the admin and myself, we can usually figure out who’s doing it.”
Everett said he hasn’t noticed any new school vandalism since the school started to crack down on it. But with that trend looking to be over, he had a whole list of other trends that he and the school had to look out for.
“I have a list from Maryland, it’s a school safety bulletin, it keeps track of all of the TikTok trends. The October one was slap a staff member, which actually happened in a Springfield school. There is another from December which is called deck the halls which is to trash the school and do inappropriate graffiti.”
Some of the new and upcoming TikTok trends are horrible and scary. However Everett and admin will be on their toes, looking out for vandals and even worse people in the upcoming months.
“If someone were to slap a teacher, let me tell you, they’d be gone and facing felony charges. Don’t do it, it’s not smart and it’s not worth it,” Everett added