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City Wants To Fire Teacher Who Blogged About Hooker Past
By
Jen Chung
Published Dec 2, 2010
Modified Dec 2, 2010
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By
Jen Chung
Published Dec 2, 2010
Modified Dec 2, 2010
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The city will navigate the Byzantine, 83-step process it takes to fire a teacher because having a teacher who blogged about her services as a Craigslist sex worker on city payroll is embarrassing! Melissa Petro was removed from teaching duties at PS 70 in the Bronx when the tabloids caught wind of her provocative past, but, since she was recently granted tenure, it's difficult to actually fire her. But now the Department of Education has leveled conduct "unbecoming a teacher" charges at the 30-year-old.
The Daily News is upset that the DOE won't release its report on Petro, "Officials also declined to release the investigative documents that might explain the specific charges and refused even to explain why the documents are not public. Spokeswoman Natalie Ravitz said, 'On advice of counsel, I am declining to release the report.' That's an apparent switch in policy. Less than two weeks ago, when officials announced they wanted to can Brooklyn principal Jonathan Straughn, the agency released a full explanation."
And when the Wall Street Journal asked Petro for a comment, "she offered to submit an op-ed in response to the charges. 'Otherwise, I’m not prepared to comment at this time,' she wrote." Well, she does have that MFA in creative non-fiction; she wrote about being a stripper in Mexico and the problem with the Internet, "I recently had the experience at my job of being warned by a colleague that other coworkers have begun Googling me. The concern is that I’m an elementary school teacher (teaching art/creative writing at a public school in the South Bronx) as well as a writer, and my writing- at least that which has been published and is therefore “Google-able”- is primarily about my experiences as a sex worker, which occurred some time prior to my becoming a teacher."
Tagged
craiglist
hooker
melissa petro
rubber room
sex worker
teacher
Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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