Principal Is Cited for Occult ‘Cleansing’ Ritual
By Jennifer Medina
A principal at a high school in Lower Manhattan had heard the jokes about using a “sage,” or spiritual guru, to perform a “cleansing” of the building to counteract misbehaving students. The principal took the jokes seriously –- performing a Santeria ceremony during the school’s midwinter break in 2006, according to a report released today by the special commissioner of investigation for the New York City public schools.
One day last winter, the principal, Martiza Tamayo, told an assistant principal, Melody Crooks-Simpson, that she had a friend who could do just that. Ms. Tamayo promised that the friend “could burn sage and incense in the school and it would calm the students down,” according to the report. (Santeria is an Afro-Caribbean syncretic religion, some of whose adherents believe in trances, animal sacrifice and sacred drumming and dance.)
A few weeks later, Ms. Tamayo told Ms. Crooks-Simpson that during the February break, her friend would be coming to perform a Santeria ceremony that would involve sprinkling chicken blood on the building. Ms. Crook-Simpson declined, saying that she had never been to a ceremony like that and was afraid.
But the ceremony apparently went on without her. Ms. Tamayo called Ms. Crooks-Simpson at home and said, “You missed a beautiful ceremony.” After saying that it was “not going to work without you,” Ms. Tamayo instructed Ms. Crooks-Simpson to come to the school the next day for a continuation of the ceremony. “Wear white,” Ms. Crooks-Simpson said she remembered Ms. Tamayo instructing her. “If there’s anything evil, it won’t get on you.”
Ms. Crooks-Simpson told investigators that she was hesitant, but felt compelled to follow the instructions from her boss. She arrived to find Ms. Tamayo’s friend, Gilda Fonte, in a conference room near the principal’s office. She displayed a few tarot cards and took a couple of puffs from a cigar before putting it down on the table. She asked Ms. Csooks-Simpson to shuffle the cards and mumbled some words. The ceremony lasted about a half-hour.
The next week, Ms. Tamayo told Ms. Crooks-Simpson that she would need to pay $900 to pay for half of Ms. Fonte’s service fee. Ms. Crooks-Simpson eventually obliged.
But now, after a six-month investigation, the special commissioner is recommending that Ms. Tamayo, who had been at the helm of the school for the last decade, be removed. A spokeswoman from the Department of Education said that the commissioner’s recommendation would be followed, and Ms. Tamayo would be removed pending the process outlined in the principal’s contract.
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Ms. Crooks-Simpson is just a teeny tiny bit gullible me thinks.
