During the 2021-2022 school year there has been an increase in vandalism around North. With the increase in destruction at North, administrative staff has attempted to encourage other behaviors to the students regarding vandalism. These behaviors consist of being a positive leader and reinforcing rules when you see another student doing wrong. Vandalism has been mainly targeted to the bathrooms here at North and around many other schools due to a TikTok trend. Many soap dispensers and other school property have been destroyed as well as graffiti within the bathroom stalls. 

“Before we even knew it was a trend we would just replace the soap dispensers and clean things up,” Dr. Lammers head principal here at North said. “Then when it started happening much more frequently we got to a point where we didn’  t have soap dispensers to replace them with and when we went to order them we couldn’t because it was happening everywhere and they ran out.” 

When vandalism was at a high, the restrooms frequently needed to be shut down in order to repair missing items or graffiti. With the increase in vandalism school staff was instructed to check in on bathrooms to make sure no harm was done. 

“Some teachers I know, myself included, keep track of who’s going to the restrooms and during class,” history teacher Kimberly Coil said. “Some teachers I have heard are even limiting kids going to the restrooms during class time.”

Vandalism has been happening so much that staff had to check cameras to see who was doing this and limit the amount of students in bathrooms. But instead of forcing students to come forward Dr. Lammers and staff have encouraged students to be a positive role model and tell other students to do the right thing.

“I didn’t want people to come forward and tell on whoever they saw doing it,” Dr. Lammers said. “But I did want people to look, if you see this happening tell them to stop, be a positive leader, and you put a stop to it you will be more effective than we will.”