Cherry Hill Schools, Parents Warn About 'Skull Breaker Challenge'

CHERRY HILL, NJ — The Cherry Hill Public School District is warning students not to mimic what they see on social media after a prank gone wrong landed a middle school student in the hospital with a concussion.

Recently, a few students in the district attempted to re-enact pranks or challenges they saw on the video sharing social media service Tik Tok and some other social media platforms, the district said in an email to the community on Thursday.

In the Tik Tok prank, a seventh grade student was the victim of the “Skull Breaker challenge,” in which two young people trip a third individual as he/she jumps in the air, causing that person in the middle to fall hard on the ground. Stacy and Marc Shenker’s son was the unwitting victim of the prank last month, and is still recovering from the concussion he suffered as a result.

“He’s doing better, but he feels like he’s being punished because he can’t do the things he likes to do,” Stacy Shenker said. "He gets tired a lot, but he doesn’t get headaches. He went back to school on a Friday, and slept all weekend after that. The first full week he returned to school, he would come home and need a nap every day."

His parents began speaking out because they don’t want any other children to fall victim to this type of prank. They haven't used their son's name or the name of the school he attends to protect his identity from those who don't know them already.

“We need to make sure this doesn’t happen to anyone else,” Shenker said. “ … They’re 13-year-old boys, and they just don’t think.”

On Tuesday, the Westfield Public School District sent an email to parents warning them about the dangerous social media challenge, specifically after the news came out about the Cherry Hill incident. The local school district didn’t acknowledge what happened publicly until Thursday’s email.

“The vast majority of children in our district have access to, or carry some sort of electronic device with them every day – smart phones, tablets, digital media players, etc. While these devices can be very useful and necessary in life and in school, they can also expose our children to images, ideas, challenges, and influences that the adults in their lives would never condone or endorse,” Cherry Hill Superintendent of Schools Dr. Joseph Meloche said in the email. “Often, children act impulsively and without considering the consequence of their actions. If your child has an electronic device, ask them to share what apps they are viewing and using. Help them to understand the extreme unintended outcomes that may occur because of a fleeting moment of making a bad choice.”

Shenker said she and her husband have a meeting with the superintendent scheduled for Friday morning. They have already suggested having an assembly to warn students about the dangers of their actions.

“We don’t know what the long-term effects will be,” Shenker said. “If he’s still lethargic in six to eight months, then we’ll know, but as with any brain injury, you just can’t predict what’s going to happen. … We just don’t want to see any more kids get injured.”