WARREN, Mich. – School educators and administrators are becoming more troubled by students attempting TikTok challenges.
The level of concern for educators from high school down is palpable. Not only is an inordinate amount of time and resources being sucked out of the school day for policing and prevention, but TikTok has become the latest portal for people to schedule so-called challenges that are leading young people down the path to criminality.
“The month of October the challenge for students is to smack a staff member and catch it on video. Another one is to, in January, touch someone inappropriately on their breast. Another one is to make a mess in the cafeteria,” said Dr. Robert Livernois, superintendent of the Warren Consolidated School District.
To date in the Warren Consolidated School District, which has 13,000 students, the middle schools have been ground zero with the vandalism challenges at play. In its six middle schools at least one incident each day can be identified.
“Some of our principals have gone so far as to require students to sign in and out of the restroom and then in between restroom use they are inspecting the restroom to make sure that, that particular student did not do any damage,” said Livernois.
As many as six students are facing actual criminal charges and another 20 face some sort of disciplinary review that includes suspension or expulsion.
“For some reason school children can’t process the fact that everything happening on their cell phone is traceable,” said Livernois.
Related: Social media trend has students trash Metro Detroit school property