Restrooms still plagued by graffiti and vandalism

Posted Nov. 1, 2022

Cub Reporter

The restroom vandalism problems had a severe impact on the school last year, as of right now there has been a much smaller amount of reported vandalism and graffiti and steps have been taken to help control it from happening again.

Last year many of the bathrooms closed due to graffiti and vandalism, starting from a TikTok trend referred to as “devious lick”. The trend involved stealing and destroying school property, often bathrooms. The bathrooms were closed for quite a while last year, everytime they would reopen, more vandalism and graffiti would occur.

This year has not been nearly as severe as last year. There have been at least a dozen reports of vandalism and graffiti reported this year, some cases worse than others and some more minor. All incidents of this year have been in various buildings.

The restrooms located near rooms 108 to 115 are still closed and will continue to be for some time. These bathrooms are not closed because of vandalism or graffiti, but due to plumbing issues that still need to be addressed through the District level.

School faculty and staff are currently working to keep restrooms open throughout the school year and limit vandalism as much as possible.

When vandalism situations occur faculty and staff including security, custodians, and other staff get involved. They often need a decent amount of time to investigate, as some cases may be harder to figure out than others. There are sometimes patterns in vandalism and graffiti and they often link together. The main thing staff focus on is researching who's doing it and when the incident took place.

“We have asked staff to not allow any students to leave their classrooms 10 minutes after the bell rings or 10 minutes before the bell rings,” said assistant principal Joe Talley.

This year staff is taking various more steps to help reduce vandalism and graffiti. Staff has been asked to do walk-throughs of restrooms during passing periods in order to help identify locations and times vandalism may be occurring.

“I encourage all students to speak up about any graffiti or vandalism they see in restrooms," Talley said.

In these situations students are the first line of defense, if students notice or hear about vandalism taking place, they are expected to report it. The sooner faculty and staff are alerted of vandalism, the better chance they have of identifying those responsible.