For the past few weeks, Spring Valley High School students have been stealing and vandalizing property as part of an international TikTok trend. The challenge, known as “Devious Licks,” is getting users’ major TikTok fame in the form of more likes and follows, the trend started at the end of August and carried onto September. Around 100,000 videos were posted to the sound and many schools were affected by the trend.

After multiple incidents of hygienic products missing from bathrooms, Spring Valley administration decided it was time to take disciplinary action. 

“Soap is our friend, we are in a pandemic,” Principal Tara Powell said “We have to make sure we have mitigation strategies and I have to have soap in the bathroom…it’s now more important than ever. Every time we have one of those [soap dispensers] ripped down we don’t have one to put back up [due to needing time to order a new supply].”

In addition to soap dispensers and bathroom items missing, another Spring Valley student attempted to steal one of the cafeteria microwaves. Other items stolen from the school include sanitary disposable units, desktop computers, projectors, posters, staplers, hole punchers, remotes, and keyboards.

“It just added to our workload…it definitely increased our work,” Assistant Principal Mike Oliver said. 

Custodians were the main faculty affected by the trend; having to constantly clean, monitor, and restock the bathrooms more frequently on top of already having to work harder to clean and sanitize the school during COVID.

“We had to get our custodians to be able to repair the damage…” Assistant Principal Oliver said. 

Principle Powell said that once she noticed items beginning to disappear, she decided to close half of the school’s bathrooms.

Spring Valley administration closed the 200’s, 300’s, and 900’s bathrooms due to the damage caused by the trend. Having two bathrooms open made it easier to monitor and clean, according to Powell. Bathrooms are also checked at a duration of every 15 minutes and teachers are more strictly enforcing bathroom logs when students leave. Since then, Powell said the licks have dramatically decreased.

If students are caught participating in the trend, there will be disciplinary action put in place. Depending on the item, consequences may vary. They may get cited by the police, fined, or have in-house, or other consequences. 

Like Powell stated, “Safety is our number one priority, as well as health due to the pandemic.”

Although participating in social media trends may be fun, schools cannot stay open without soap and other necessary hygiene products. “We all live here for the majority of our day,” Powell said.  

As the trend concludes, the administration has taken into consideration reopening all of the bathrooms throughout the school.