As if administrators, teachers and other school officials don’t have enough to worry about with the fallout from COVID-19 protocols and infections and all of the disruptions that have occurred during the past two school years, they have to contend with the periodic and idiotic TikTok challenges that are not only dangerous but could be life-threatening.

Ten-year-old Nyla Anderson of Chester died of asphyxiation last month after trying to hold her breath as part of the “blackout challenge” featured on TikTok and other social media platforms.

Another 10-year-old, Robert Craig of Georgia, tragically died when police and his family believe he was also trying to emulate the “blackout challenge,” and wound up accidentally hanging himself from a tree.

Joshua Haileyesus, 12, of Aurora, Colorado, died in 2021, nearly three weeks after he accidentally choked himself with a shoelace while attempting the “blackout challenge.”

A TikTok spokesperson called this a disturbing development which “people seem to learn about from sources other than TikTok, long predates our platform and has never been a TikTok trend.” The spokesperson said that TikTok “remains vigilant in our commitment to user safety and would immediately remove related content if found.”

We have not had any similar deaths in our five-county area, but there have been plenty of other problems.

At Palmerton, facilities director Joseph Faenza reported during a school board workshop on an incident at a varsity football game against Schuylkill Haven last fall. “All of the fixtures in the bathroom were wrapped in toilet paper, and numerous toilet wipes were flushed down the toilet,” Faenza said. This left an extensive amount of damage to the septic line running from the stadium bathroom. The line was blocked solid, Faenza said.

While district officials said there is no way to know for sure who committed these senseless acts of vandalism, it is suspected that it was related to a monthly TikTok challenge circulating around social media. September’s TikTok challenge was “vandalize school bathrooms,” and schools across the country, including several more in our area, were affected.

More recently, school districts in the Lehigh Valley and elsewhere requested additional police presence in response to a viral TikTok post in mid-December that made broad threats to school safety aimed at “every school in the USA.”

Schools in some states closed. While most school officials in our region simply reassured parents that they were aware of the threats, the situation was more serious in the East Penn School District in Lehigh County. It locked down Emmaus High School and then sent students home early after finding some circulating threat rumors were specific to the school.

A young student was taken into custody for initiating the associated threat at Emmaus. In fact, she was even brazenly involved in notifying school officials and police about the threat. Of course, she never told them that she was the instigator, which turned out to be an idle one that she thought was a funny prank. Well, guess what? The joke’s on her, because now she faces juvenile court action.

Last year, school districts were trying to deal with the “devious lick” challenge, which is the name given to the vandalizing of school bathrooms and other school property. Schools found missing soap dispensers, damaged plumbing and fixtures, rolls of toilet paper randomly tossed around the facilities and some things that are too gross and vile to mention in a family newspaper.

In Eastern Pennsylvania, aside from Palmerton, there were reports of damage in schools in the Blue Mountain, Pine Grove and Pottsville districts in Schuylkill County and in the Bethlehem Area School District in Northampton and Lehigh counties. The situation was deemed serious enough for the Pennsylvania State Police to issue an advisory to school districts across the state to be aware of what’s going on.

School officials are exasperated. They obviously can’t put security cameras in lavatories. They also can’t overly restrict students from using the facilities, especially when the risk of spreading the COVID-19 virus is so high, and students are encouraged to take extra sanitary measures, such as hand-washing.

In the most basic sense, a TikTok challenge is a call to take some sort of action and record it and show it on TikTok as an incentive to encourage others to try it. There are hundreds of these social media challenges. Many of them are harmless and include dance or song challenges, but it’s the dangerous ones that we are all concerned about, and there are too many gullible youngsters who don’t realize the trouble they will be in if they are caught trying to complete these challenges. Even more insidious is the prospect of killing themselves.

Can you imagine burning yourself on a lark? Well, there’s the “salt and ice challenge,” which involves putting salt on one’s skin and holding an ice cube on the spot for as long as possible. The combination creates a chemical reaction that causes pain and can lead to frostbite, first- or second-degree burns, and blisters. Why would anyone be so stupid to engage in such behavior? It’s reminiscent of the “Jackass” movies.

TikTok officials are pulling down these posts as fast as they can get to them, but it is like playing Whack-a-Mole. One of the strongest steps that school administrators can do it to make sure when one of these vandals is caught that he or she is punished to the fullest extent of the law. I have maintained for years that the names of these lawbreakers should be publicized. Instead, we coddle them so we don’t affect their future or fragile psyches. What I think about these legal protections for these vandals can’t be printed in a family newspaper.

By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com

The foregoing opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or Times News LLC.