On Tuesday, February 15th, right before winter break, the girls’ locker room was vandalized. The back showers were covered in black permanent marker, and inappropriate phrases and drawings were scribbled everywhere. There were drawings on the sides of the lockers, on the floor, the shower fixtures, and on the walls. The locker room was closed shortly after the discovery in the block 1/2 P.E. class. Junior, Vianne Ball, was on her way into the locker room when she was met with the fact that it was closed. “I went down to put my stuff in the locker room and there was a sign that said you couldn’t go in, and someone told me that the locker room was vandalized.” Junior, Gabby Henry, recounts a similar experience. “The gym teachers knew about it. Mrs. Muzz came into the locker room and asked if my friend and I had seen it. Then, kids in the morning gym class went into the back showers to look and take pictures.” The locker room was closed for the rest of the day for cleaning. However, this incident was not the end of the saga. 

On February 17th, a Hive journalist went to inspect further they discovered that a pink acrylic paint in different shades had been splattered all over the walls where the initial vandalism was. This time, there were no words, inappropriate phrases, or drawings, just pink splatter. It looked more like an abstract art piece rather than vandalism. There was a large open shape drawn in the middle of the shower room done in what looked like black permanent marker, but it couldn’t be determined if it was new or leftover from the previous incident. 

These incidents seem to be part of a pattern of vandalism occurrences at the school. Recently, the bathroom in the C Wing was closed. Students see it every day: the stalls have carvings or words written in permanent marker on the toilet paper dispensers, and even just penciled drawings on the sides of the stalls. In addition, there are chalk drawings that show up on the outside walls of the school. For example, the red Among Us character is depicted on the side of the football locker room. Another example was the incident that happened a few weeks before break; a neon pink and blue tag was sprayed across the doors of the brick supply shed near the school entrance. It happened twice. 

The question remains: Why has this been happening?

With popular trends like Devious Licks on TikTok, where students post items that they’ve stolen from school, including clocks, soap and toilet paper dispensers, bathroom mirrors, and even fire alarms, it is easy to see why the appeal exists for students to steal or damage property–these posts get millions of views. When these situations are posted online, they often gain traction, likes, and ultimately provide the culprit with a sense of popularity.

Amanda Brennan, the senior director of trends at XX Artists, a digital marketing agency, hypothesizes that these trends are stemming from the recent events regarding the pandemic. “The answer might be the pandemic. After more than a year of shutdowns and virtual schooling, students, who are now returning to schools for the first time, may just be looking for a way to rebel…It makes sense to see kids stealing things because it feels like a power play. You feel powerful over these systems that you may not have felt as if you had a lot of control over.” This is understandable regarding the fact that for most students, this year is their first time back to school full-time in two years. Some students just want to return to a feeling of being in control of something, even if that something is destruction of property or vandalism.

Incidents such as these have become the standard. Students see vandalism throughout the school daily; it is seen in bathrooms, locker rooms, desks, walls, cafeterias, and hallways. The frequent exposure of seeing these things leads to vandalism being normalized. Then, more and more incidents happen because it is seen as not a big deal because everyone is doing it. 

Ultimately, these issues might also stem from a general lack of respect for school property. Unfortunately, these incidents of vandalism seem to be happening more frequently. The maintenance and custodial staff are spending their time cleaning up after students who have little respect for the property or for their labor. They have been doing this work on top of maintenance that is required as a result of the pandemic. Vandalism leaves the staff feeling disrespected.

The Hive sat down with Karen Haines, a member of the custodial team for an interview. During the discussion, she mentioned that along with her normal responsibilities, such as cleaning bathrooms, dusting, mopping, sweeping, and taking care of the trash and recycling, she and her co-workers spend upwards of one hour per day just cleaning up vandalism. She said that they find something new every day. When asked what she would want to tell the student body, and specifically the students committing acts of vandalism, she said, “I understand that you’re going through a hard time in your life. Whether that be COVID-19 related, family related, or personal. I understand that completely. What is not okay, is to go ahead and vandalize someone else’s property, something that someone else has to take care of and clean up. There should be consequences for your actions. And furthermore, you’re making other people, that are not involved, suffer, because we have to take things away, or lock things up. And that’s not fair.” 

Mrs. Haines touched on the fact that the repeated acts of vandalism make her and her co-workers feel that their work is not appreciated. “It is my job to clean, and I don’t mind. But for [vandalism] to be repeatedly done, over and over again, and having students know that we are the ones who are cleaning it up, it’s like they just don’t care.” She also mentioned the issue of soap dispensers being ripped off of the walls in the bathrooms. “So there’s people in [the bathrooms] that didn’t rip the soap dispensers off, but they can’t wash their hands because there are no soap dispensers. We’re at a standstill right now, because this was the third set of soap dispensers that I’ve put up in the boys’ bathroom, and I screwed them into the wall this time. They still ripped them off the wall. So I’m at a loss right now. It’s costing us money.” She continued by saying, “There was an incident yesterday on the floor down below me. So students took [a co-worker’s] bag of trash into the boys bathroom, dumped it on the floor, and took the rest of it and dumped it in the middle of the hallway.”

Haines remarked, “I think this is the worst I’ve ever seen it.” 

The Hive reached out to Mr. Goodrich for a comment on the issue but did not receive a response.