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Hooker-Turned-Teacher Moving On To Other Tricks
By
Ben Yakas
Published Jan 22, 2011
Modified Jan 22, 2011
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By
Ben Yakas
Published Jan 22, 2011
Modified Jan 22, 2011
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The Bronx public school teacher whose past as a sex worker made her front page fodder announced her resignation yesterday. In the fall, Melissa Petro was bounced from teaching art at Public School 70 in Mount Eden to the rubber room, after an essay she wrote on being a Craigslist prostitute led to her picture being plastered on the dallies. The Department of Education was reportedly embarrassed by the incident, and was seeking to fire her for "conduct unbecoming" her profession.
Petro was defiant in the face of the story. In December, she wrote a piece for the Huffington Post in which she said, "The DOE may be embarrassed by the New York Post, but I am not. I have no regrets and have done nothing I'm ashamed of. I have worked hard to become the woman I am today—a woman of dignity and grace, not to mention a competent teacher as well as an accomplished writer. I do not deserve to be shamed or punished or made to feel useless, and yet here I sit in "reassignment."" She gave more interviews, including one with Marie Claire in which she spoke about spending her wastrel days in the rubber room penning a memoir on the public's dime: "I'm paid my full salary to sit in what amounts to detention."
In the end though, she must have decided it wasn't worth going through to an administrative trial; instead, she will remain on the payroll until the end of April, for the time she would have stayed employed had she insisted on a disciplinary hearing. In addition, according to the Times, she has agreed to never seek employment in the city public schools ever again.
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Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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