Although vandalism is nothing new to public schools, recent social media trends have further exacerbated this problem. As school property has been stolen or destroyed, AWHS administration now examines ways to combat the trend.

 A Tik Tok trend known as “Devious Licks,” where students vandalize and steal school property, has influenced some students at AWHS, predominantly occurring in the boys’ bathrooms. As a result, many teachers have enforced that students sign out of classrooms to go to the restroom, in order to keep track of who is in the bathroom while the damage occurs. 

Assistant Principal Nate Severin is hesitant to refer to the situation as “vandalism,” as it is not malicious and hasn’t become too severe. AWHS faculty is aware of the trend, so if it does escalate, it will be brought to Severin’s attention.

“I haven’t had anything officially come through my office yet saying we have to address this, it’s just been more little things here and there that we have handled with teachers within the classrooms. Thankfully it hasn’t been a huge thing as of yet,” Severin said. 

AWHS administration sent out emails to teachers letting them know about the Tik Tok trend and the few incidents that have occurred so far on campus. AWHS teachers are aware and are keeping track of students who leave the class. If there is a correlation between certain students leaving class and vandalism taking place during certain times, faculty may suspect that these students are partaking in the “Devious Licks”  trend. 

“They started off with putting some kind of red ink on top of the toilet seats, to make it look like it’s blood, and eventually they came up with the idea of taking the soap dispensers off of the walls,” said one of AWHS’ custodians, Milton Aldana, “I saw some videos from another part of [California] where they are taking doors and toilets off the walls, making a huge mess,” Aldana said. 

 Aldana feels fortunate that students are only breaking a few things and removing soap dispensers from walls, and that the destruction has already started to stop. 

Still, Severin wants to continue building relationships between students and staff in hopes that it will help students realize how their actions can affect the school community. Though the behavior is not condoned, Severin feels that it is important to look at the situation from the perspective of the students. 

  “They’re kids who have been cooped up and they’re acting like kids. Even though kids do things they shouldn’t do, or you don’t want them to do, thinking of it from the place of you’re a good person, we can work with that,” Severin said. 

Social media has had a large effect on student’s behavior, but so far AWHS’ “Devious Licks” have been short-lived. AWHS staff is now working  to ensure that the damage in bathrooms and around the school don’t get out of control.