Coalinga-Huron Superintendent says nearly every district school was vandalized in TikTok challenge

COALINGA, Calif. (KFSN) -- The Coalinga-Huron Unified School District superintendent is calling on parents to help after nearly every school in the district was vandalized.

Superintendent Lori Villanueva said the damage is part of a TikTok challenge.

The district shared pictures with Action News and said students are vandalizing bathrooms by breaking soap and toilet paper dispensers.

They're dumping them in the toilets and, in some cases, spraying red dye across the bathrooms.

In the last three days, the district has had to replace 41 soap dispensers.

Villanueva sent the following notice out to parents across the district on Tuesday:

"Students have been vandalizing our school bathrooms as part of a TIK TOK challenge. The vandalism is breaking soap, toilet paper and sanitary product dispensers, and staining the toilets with red dye to make it appear like blood. We have had to replace 41 soap dispensers in the last three days. Almost all of our bathrooms have been vandalized in the last few days. Another part of the challenge is to steal items from the school. Please let your child know that vandalism and stealing are not acceptable. Students who are involved will be suspended, and parents will be billed for damages and time to clean up the damage. We want our bathrooms to be a safe and clean place for your students to use, and we need all vandalism and stealing to stop immediately. We are sending this message out to all families, because we need your help to stop this TIK TOK challenge."

The vandalism is part of a "devious licks" or "devil licks" trend on TikTok.

"You know kids think they're having fun, but there are costs to me as a district, which are the clean up costs, replacing the things that they broke, the damage of, now I have to bring staff into monitor restrooms." Villanueva said.

The superintendent says students caught vandalizing the school will be suspended and parents will be billed for damages and time to clean up the damage.

"My hopes are that the parents and the community will come together to say, 'No, we don't damage our schools because of some TikTok challenge." Villanueva said.

A spokesperson from TikTok released the following statement, saying they will be removing this kind of content from their platform:

"We expect our community to stay safe and create responsibly, and we do not allow content that promotes or enables criminal activities. We are removing this content and redirecting hashtags and search results to our Community Guidelines to discourage such behavior."