At Woodland Hills HS, Shawntae was a starter at safety his junior year, and started at the same position for part of his senior before moving to starting quarterback. The team went 22-4 over his last two seasons there and won the WPIAL Class AAAA Championship in 1999. At quarterback he completed 30 of 77 passes for 543 yards and rushed 43 times for 154 yards and 4 touchdowns. He was selected to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette "Fabulous 22", Pittsburgh Tribune-Review "Terrific 25", All-WPIAL Class AAAA, and first team All-WPIAL Quad East. SuperPrep ranked him All-Northeast Region and SuperPrep ranked him the 28th prospect in Pennsylvania. He was named All-East Region by PrepStar. Shawntae was also a track star during his career there, finishing second in the WPIAL and sixth in the state in the long jump.