Witchcraft: Southwestern High School disciplines a 15-year-old
girl accused of casting a spell on another student.
By John Rivera
Southwestern High School was thrown into turmoil yesterday when
a ninth-grader accused her classmate, an admitted practicing
witch who is the daughter of a witch, of putting a hex on her.
In an incident seemingly more appropriate for a Halloween tale
than for a public school, Jamie Schoonover, a 15-year-old
freshman, was sent home yesterday with an official city schools
discipline form, which cited the reason for the referral as
"casting a spell on a student."
Earl L. Lee, principal of the Alpha Academy that comprises the
school's ninth grade, has summoned the parents of both girls to
his office today to sort everything out.
"This is the first case I've ever had like this in 29 years,"
Lee said. "This is totally new to me."
Schoonover said it's all a misunderstanding. She would never
cast a spell because the principles of Wicca, a form of
neo-paganism that she and her mother practice, dictate that
whatever you do, good or evil, returns to you threefold.
"If she was to go ahead and cast some evil spell, she would look
at it coming back to her three times over," said her mother,
Colleen Harper. "I don't think that she'd want to do that."
Harper says she believes her daughter has become a target
because of her religious beliefs, which are not respected by
school officials. "I'm highly upset because this is a faith we
practice as devoutly as a Christian would practice
Christianity," she said.
But school officials say the disciplinary action taken against
Schoonover is not about religion.
"The student was suspended for allegedly threatening other
students, which is a violation of the student discipline code,
which was established by the Baltimore City school board," said
Vanessa Pyatt, a city schools spokeswoman. "The nature of the
threat -- casting a spell or whatever -- that doesn't enter into
it right now."
Lee said the incident began yesterday morning before school. A
group of five or six students ran up to him, consoling a girl
who was in tears, he said.
"The other child was crying so hard I couldn't get anything out
of her," he said. "I've never seen a child so upset about
anything. I thought she had been in a fight or something, the
way she was hysterical and out of control.
"They said this new girl at school, who was a witch, who
practices Satanism, had cast a spell on her," Lee said.
When Lee got back to his office, Schoonover was waiting for him.
"I began to question her. I said, `What is this about, you
casting a spell on a child?' She said, `I know how to do it, but
I would never cast a spell on a child.'
"I asked her, Do you practice witchcraft?' And she said, `Yes, I
practice witchcraft,' " he said. "It's just so new to us that a
child openly admits she practices witchcraft. It's very bizarre
to us. So, we wanted to get the parents involved, to see if they
had any knowledge of it."
Not only does Harper know about it, she practices witchcraft
with the girl. Harper, a transsexual who was Schoonover's father
but now calls herself her mother, has been a practitioner of
Wicca for a year, after dabbling in it for five or so years.
"We're not Satanists, simply because Satan is a Christian
concept and we don't have anything to do with Christianity,"
Harper said. "Unfortunately, there are too many superstitions
that have been encouraged by Hollywood's depiction of
witchcraft."
Wicca is a benign religious practice closely associated with
nature and nature's cycles, she said.
That confusion is at the root of the problem, Schoonover said.
According to her version of events, she and friends were sitting
around a tree when they noticed other girls had written their
own names on rocks there. One of her friends wanted to cross out
the names, so Schoonover lent the friend a white-out pen.
After crossing out the names, the friend wrote, "Life is a
virtue of death."
"The girls came over and they thought I had put a spell on
them," Schoonover said. "I said, `No, I didn't put a spell on
anybody.' "
One of the girls began to cry.
"That girl was scared stiff," Schoonover said. "She was crying
and crying. She would just get scared of me looking over at her."
Lee said he was troubled by Schoonover's admission that she
practices witchcraft and by the effect that knowledge is having
on some students.
"Because of the information the child was giving us, we felt it
was necessary to send a letter home and to talk with her parents
about how it is affecting other children in the school," he
said. "The child said she practiced witchcraft, so we want
additional information about this witchcraft, whether it's a
true religion or not. I have to do some further research."
Originally published on Oct 21 1998
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