A New York City elementary school teacher of three years has admitted to selling sexual services in an essay she posted earlier this month, claiming she worked as a prostitute.
Melissa Petro, 30, posted an essay on The Huffington Post in which she comes clean about previously using online services such as Craigslist.org to sell sexual services to men, the New York Post reports.
"From October 2006 to January 2007, I accepted money in exchange for sexual services I provided to men I met online in what was then called the 'erotic services' section of Craigslist.org," Petro wrote on The Huffington Post.
Petro, who has an MFA in creative nonfiction from The New School, has an attached biography on The Huffington Post that identifies her as "a former sex worker," before adding that she's also a "researcher, writer, educator, and feminist."
Petro's admitted past sex life has alarmed many of the parents at PS 70, including Yocelyn Quezada, whose kids were in Petro's class.
"She's not a good role model. I do not want my daughters to find out about this," Quezada said, "and I do not want my daughters to be around that kind of person."
As seen in her online posts, Petro was apparently warned by several school employees who saw her history and refusal to keep it silent as a marker for trouble.
"In an off the record conversation, a sympathetic administrator kindly asked if I couldn't publish under a pseudonym. I wish, for her sake, I could," Petro wrote on The Rumpus, an online magazine.
Principal Kerry Castellano has referred all questions to the Department of Education's press office, which said Petro has been reassigned to administrative duties pending an investigation.
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