ROCKFORD, Mich. — A social media trend is getting students in trouble across the country. One local superintendent is warning students everywhere not to participate in it at all.
“Think before you do and say ‘Is this really the right thing’ and you know frankly ‘Would I do this at home? Would I actually vandalize a soap dispenser or do something with the bathroom toilet?’,” said Rockford Public Schools Superintendent Mike Shibler during an interview on Tuesday afternoon. “‘Would I do that or would I not?’ You know in all of our facilities we’re very proud of the fact that we’ve taken care of them.”
Shibler said of the 8,000 students that they have in their 13 school buildings they have had only 10 incidents of students participating in the Devious Licks challenge on TikTok.
The trend encourages students to damage school property and then post it on the social media platform.
In each of the times it’s happened at Rockford Public Schools, the students were suspended. Shibler said he doesn’t want students participating in it because it’ll impact their future negatively.
“If whatever they’ve done lands on a particular website and they go for a job someday, I mean maybe a summer job next summer, and their employer will examine, many times they do check out social media and they say look ‘we saw you on this doing this’ and therefore we’re not going to hire you because we consider those types of behaviors unacceptable',” said Shibler. “It will stay with them and they need to think about that.”
Shibler said students at Rockford have been helpful in letting faculty and staff know of any vandalism. Nevertheless, he asks all students both in and out of Rockford to refrain from participating in the Devious Licks challenge.
“Forget about your 15 minutes of fame because quite frankly it's not worth it,” Shibler said. “Particularly if you’re caught there will be consequences.”
