Savage
Earth Rocker
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I'm a former student at this school so I just had to post this. 
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I feel pretty bad for her. She's such a sweet woman and she had good intentions but anyone with a junior high school education knows that school and religion together are a big no-no in this country. I just find it funny because I pretty much expected something crazy like this from that school eventually. God I love my crazy ass, one floor sized, public school.t:
t: Posted on 08/07/2007 2:16:40 PM PDT by LurkedLongEnough
NEW YORK (AP) -- A public school principal accused of performing religious rituals with candles, incense and chicken blood in an attempt to cleanse her high school of negative energy has been reassigned and will be fired, the Department of Education said Tuesday.
Maritza Tamayo, principal of the Unity Center for Urban Technologies, paid a woman named Gilda Fonte to lead several Santeria rituals at the Manhattan school during midwinter break in 2006, when students were not there, according to Richard Condon, the special commissioner of investigation for city schools. Tamayo coerced staff members to participate in and help pay for the cost of the ceremonies, investigators said.
Santeria is a blend of traditional African religions and Catholicism and first was practiced in the Caribbean by slaves who were prohibited from worshipping in other religions.
Tamayo also paid Fonte to shuttle students in her personal car from their homes to off-campus English and math Regents exams without parental permission and made teachers cover part of the transportation costs, investigators said.
A former assistant principal, Melody Crooks-Simpson, said there was a running joke at the school that sage should be used to cleanse the building because many of the students were ill-behaved. But it seems Tamayo took it seriously, Crooks-Simpson told investigators, and had Fonte lead a ceremony at which she sprinkled chicken blood on the building.
Crooks-Simpson told investigators she didn't attend that ceremony but showed up to school a few days later in a white dress to participate in another ceremony because Tamayo said it wouldn't work without her. She said she was charged $900 by Tamayo for the rite.
Another teacher saw Tamayo, Fonte and another woman, wearing white dresses, performing a ritual at the school while Fonte balanced a silver tray with 40 lit candles on her head, said investigators, who were tipped in February by an anonymous caller who accused Tamayo of misconduct.
The commissioner's report recommended that Tamayo be fired and made ineligible to work in the Department of Education. It said the current assistant principal, Ira Simmonds, should be disciplined because he knew about the students being transported by Fonte.
Telephone calls to Tamayo's home were unanswered Tuesday. But in the report, Tamayo denied taking part in a religious ceremony at the school and said the $900 paid to her by Crooks-Simpson was for a vacation they took together with their families.
Fonte told investigators she did not practice Santeria. There was no telephone listing for her.
The problem wasn't that Tamayo was performing bizarre religious rituals but that she was coercing her staff to participate, Condon said.
"Had she hired a priest to sprinkle holy water on the building, and she coerced the assistant principal into paying for it and attending it, I would have a problem with it,'' Condon said.
He said it was up to the Department of Education to decide whether religious ceremonies were appropriate for schools, even when students weren't there.
Department of Education spokeswoman Margie Feinberg said that Tamayo would be reassigned immediately and was going to be fired. She said that Simmonds would be disciplined.
She wouldn't comment on the religious aspect of the story.
There was no answer at the school, which is out for the summer. Students report back after Labor Day. A message left at Simmonds' home was not returned.
Tamayo had been the principal since 1997 at the school of about 200 students. She earned $133,998 annually; she taught Spanish and served as an assistant principal at other public schools.
I feel pretty bad for her. She's such a sweet woman and she had good intentions but anyone with a junior high school education knows that school and religion together are a big no-no in this country. I just find it funny because I pretty much expected something crazy like this from that school eventually. God I love my crazy ass, one floor sized, public school.
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