'Devious licks' asks students via TikTok to 'smack a staff member.' The nation's teachers are feeling burnt out.

Educators across the country are already overwhelmed with the chaos that is teaching during a pandemic. As if that weren’t enough, now they’re contending with a different kind of chaos: a TikTok trend that encourages students to cause havoc on campus.

This month, that havoc could reach a new level, resulting in physical violence against teachers and other school employees. And the prospect has already-demoralized educators increasingly worried about the sustainability of their profession as it stands.

In September, its inaugural month, the so-called “devious licks" trend challenged students to steal and vandalize school property. Teens across the country were arrested.

According to a list that’s been circulating online, this month’s challenge is to “smack a staff member.” Challenges for subsequent months range from “mess up school signs” and “flip off the front office” to “kiss your friend’s girlfriend at school” and “jab a breast.”

“This is a flat-out, calculated plan to commit a crime on a person, and that’s not okay,” said Anna Fusco, the president of the Broward Teachers Union, which represents educators in the Florida county. Fusco has worked in schools for nearly three decades and this is the first time she’s witnessed a deliberate attempt to incite violence against teachers; she never thought she’d be in the position of advising fellow educators to contact law enforcement if their students’ behavior gets out of hand.

The union recently sent out an advisory warning staff of the trend and encouraging campus leaders to be proactive in addressing the matter. “It’s so serious that everybody that I spoke to … has just been extremely flabbergasted that it’s gotten to this level,” Fusco said. “Our teachers do not sign up to go into work and have to look over their shoulder or be worried that they might get hit, slapped, kicked, punched in the head, face, back or any part of their body.”

Many educators have taken to social media to discourage the challenges and beg TikTok to take action. TikTok has previously told USA TODAY it was removing content related to "devious licks," including the hashtag #deviouslicks ,and "redirecting hashtags and search results to our Community Guidelines to discourage such behavior." TikTok users have begun using alternative hashtags to get around the ban.

Morale is already low in schools amid COVID struggles

“Devious licks” comes at a time when educators are already dealing with heightened levels of burnout and low morale. Schools have become battlegrounds over masks and vaccines and critical race theory, with scores of angry parents accusing teachers of indoctrinating their children. Amid ongoing COVID-related disruptions, schools are also struggling with staffing shortages, forcing many educators to take on added responsibilities all while supporting students who are disengaged and depressed themselves.

“Everyone’s just treading water right now,” said Ebony Thornton, a Spanish teacher in Gwinnett County Public Schools, Georgia. “I believe that, if this is a legitimate challenge – if this is real – this could be it for a lot of teachers I know.”

For Thornton, the job of teaching has been “demoralizing” since the onset of the pandemic. Many educators felt their lives were being taken for granted by policymakers who required them to return to their classrooms despite the ongoing risks of contracting COVID-19 at school, said Thornton, who’s been teaching for nearly two decades. “It feels like the death of our profession by a thousand paper cuts,” she said.

John Bracey, a high-school Latin teacher in Massachusetts, described the "devious licks" threats as the latest iteration of what’s been a long-drawn-out process of “dehumanizing” educators. He isn’t surprised that teachers are this month’s "devious licks" targets.

“For I don’t know how many decades, teachers have been the punching bag, the scapegoat for everything,” he said. “Basically, we have become the go-to place to attack for when powerful people fail to protect normal people. ...It’s no coincidence that educators are being singled out – this fits in perfectly with the narrative that’s been building for decades.

Asked whether he’s worried about being attacked this month, Bracey said he’s “just so numb.” He was more terrified for his physical safety when he was required to return to crowded school buildings in the middle of a pandemic; the prospect of getting hurt by a student pales in comparison. “I’d rather take a slap in the face than [contract] a deadly respiratory virus,” he said.

Schools aren't taking this lightly

District leaders across the U.S. have been warning their communities of the prospective violence, emphasizing the consequences of partaking in the trend. Many of the activities endorsed by "devious licks" are criminal offenses, from battery to sexual assault. Students who engage face not only suspension but also arrest.

Kenneth Trump, a consultant with National School Safety and Security Services, said schools need to be proactive – and creative – in addressing the trend. He pointed to a school resource officer in Indiana who made a TikTok video satirizing "devious licks." The video shows someone attempting to steal a soap dispenser before zooming out to reveal that the perpetrator is, in fact, a uniformed officer.

"This really isn't that funny – it's not that funny at all," the officer says into the mirror, chuckling sarcastically. "It's property damage, it's vandalism and it's theft, and I don't want that for any of you. ... So, please, find a new trend – enough with the 'devious licks.'"

Hannah Miller, of the National School Climate Center at Ramapo for Children, emphasized the need for schools to recognize and leverage the influence of platforms such as TikTok. “If there's anything we've learned this last year, it's that the school climate extends itself beyond the confines of a four-wall classroom and into virtual spaces and on social media,” she said in an email. “These moments reveal and reiterate the need to engage youth voices in problem-solving and informing school policy.”

Some have dismissed the trend as lighthearted fun – kids just being kids. One New York magazine article described the response to last month’s "devious licks"-induced wave of campus vandalism and theft as “grown-up hysteria.”

Whether large numbers of students will continue to participate in the trend – and engage in some of its more troubling activities – is unclear. Educators are optimistic that the vast majority of students acknowledge the severity of what the challenges are asking them to do and will sit them out.

But the reality is that teens’ brains are still developing – people don’t fully form their executive functioning skills until they’re in their 20s. TikTok has surged in popularity among young people, and the challenges promoted on it – whether they’re part of Devious Licks or something more innocuous – can be extremely tempting.

“It’s a competition, a thrill, an enjoyment, a status achievement for those who do it,” said Trump, himself a father of two TikTok-loving adolescents. “When those challenges are presented, our teens will step up and accept them.”

What students need to understand, he said, is that these activities aren’t only wrong, they may also constitute a crime. And those criminal charges “are going to have a much broader impact on their life than 10 seconds of fame and high fives from their friends.”

Another reality that concerns Thornton and Bracey, both of whom are Black, is that students of color are disciplined at higher rates than their white peers.

They fear the "devious licks" phenomenon could reinforce that trend. “Privilege is a thing,” Thornton said. “Students of color who participate in this … could find themselves kicked out of school.” Schools, she said, should emphasize accountability without resorting to heavy punishment.

As Bracey stressed, students ultimately aren’t to blame. “They're learning it from somewhere and I don't think it’s from each other,” he said. “The overall dehumanization (of teachers) is coming from adults, and (students are) following their model."

Contact Alia Wong at (202) 507-2256 or awong@usatoday.com. Follow her on Twitter at @aliaemily.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: October's 'devious licks' TikTok challenge: 'smack a staff member'