Tik Tok Challenge Draws Stern Warning From School District

Press release from the New Haven Unified School District:

September 16, 2021

New Haven Families,

We are alerting you to a new trend on social media called “Devious Licks.” This trend involves encouraging teens to “lick” or steal items from school, whether these items are soap dispensers, teacher’s keys, urinals, or more, including school buses, and then posting about the stolen item on social media with the hashtag, #deviouslicks.

Across New Haven, we have already had incidents of soap dispensers being ripped off the walks, bathrooms being vandalized, and other acts of vandalism.

In response to this, we are alerting our New Haven staff about this trend and asking our community to inform their school administrator if they know of these actions taking place at our New Haven schools or sharing the link to any social media videos of such actions.

This is a very serious offense, and if a student is found to be stealing, being in possession of stolen items, or damaging school property (which also includes people’s personal belongings), the District will take the appropriate disciplinary action which may include:

• Community service to repair the harm to the school community,
• Remove the student’s privileges for the remainder of the school year, including participation in athletics or other extracurricular activities, attending athletic games, dances, and graduation activities,
• Seek reimbursement for the stolen and damaged items from the student or their family,
• Suspension from school.
• In more severe situations, where a student violates penal code, the referral to local law enforcement may be made.

As suspensions are a last resort disciplinary action, a student taking accountability is a positive step in the restorative justice process. Students who engage in, confess to, and/or return items that were "licked" while engaging in this trend will be recognized for their desire to be a part of the restorative process in the determination of appropriate disciplinary actions.

Please talk with your student about the serious consequences of participating in this trend, or participating in any other activity that involves stealing or damaging school property. We also encourage monitoring of students’ social media activity, as these types of social media challenges tend to involve risky behaviors of which students do not typically realize the serious consequences or threat to the safety of our schools and community until it’s too late.Thank you for your assistance in helping to put a stop to this activity in our community.

This press release was produced by the New Haven Unified School District. The views expressed here are the author’s own.